


Telephone

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [35]
Category: Glee
Genre: Brothership, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2011-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finn Hudson isn't stupid. He knows when someone is keeping a secret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Teaser

**Author's Note:**

> [Playlist for Ep 3x18 "Telephone"](http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL04A836714E0646CA)

There’s an old Far Side cartoon that Kurt remember his dad showing him a few times. One of the students in a class asked to be excused because his “brain is full.”

Kurt’s brain feels full, too.

Not all of the things are bad. Cars–cars are simple and easy, and imagining the things that he can do with any of these specimens is relaxing.

Everything else, though; Kurt feels like he’s reducing himself to platitudes and cliches. Growing up is hard. The real world is tough. It’s all true; of course it’s true. He just wishes it didn’t all feel so heavy, that it wasn’t all at once.

When Finn appears in the doorway, he brings the tab with the ‘86 Trans Am to the front, hiding the doc he started with lists, hiding the ADAA page, hiding the page he found about budgeting, hiding eBay, hiding H&M, hiding Kelley Blue Book and hiding Edmunds.

And when Finn leaves, Kurt closes the laptop and decides to retreat into the bathroom with one of his bubble bars from the previous day’s excursion. There’s too much to think about, and most of it needs to be talked about, and that has to wait until later, anyway.

The sweetness in the bittersweet is that there’s someone to talk about it all with.

 

Puck gets two days a week where he’s not at Starbucks before 8 am in the morning. Two. One of them is Saturday, at least, but he’s still usually up what most people would consider early, and the other one is Tuesday. Yeah, he still has to go to school on Tuesdays, but he and Kurt get breakfast at Waffle House and joke with the waitress and ask about her kid and then go to school with huge cups of to-go coffee that she gives them for free.

It’s the one thing they both agree they won’t give up, no matter how they’re looking at the idea of not spending so much on crappy fast food in Lima.

So, yeah, Puck’s pissed when Rachel goes on and on about how they need a morning rehearsal. Tina seems to think Friday morning coffee is some kind of sacred ritual and, hell, no one argues with her, so the rest of them must think that, too.

It doesn’t help that Kurt ends up going home Monday night before Hannah’s even out of dance class, both of them red in the face and butthurt. When Kurt shows up at 6:30 on Tuesday morning and they drive up to Waffle House and have to place a to-go order, at least they have enough time to sit in the back of the Nav for a little bit.

“M’sorry.”

“I know, blue eyes. I am, too.” Kurt leans against him, looking worn-out and really, Puck would never say it to Kurt, but almost old. Puck wraps his arm around Kurt and holds him close. “Still not ready?”

Kurt shakes his head. “I feel so stupid, reacting this way. I can’t even articulate _why_ I’m reacting this way, you know? But I am and it doesn’t feel right to say anything until I can be less... like this. Upset and god, I’m being so fucking emo, aren’t I?”

Puck laughs. “Fashionably emo.”

“I left the house half-dressed yesterday! And today I just felt like I was sleepwalking, so shades of grey seemed like a safe bet, right?”

“And a lot of dancing today.”

“God, I know.” Kurt shakes his head. “We’re going to be dancing in our sleep.”

“We’re marchin’ on,” Puck teases. “We should go in,” he adds after a moment, reluctantly. The Nav is staying warm so far and it’d be so easy to stay there, even though Puck has noticed a few of the others, Finn amongst them, heading inside.

“Yes,” Kurt agrees, heaving a sigh as he straightens and tosses their trash into the plastic bag. “You load sixteen tons and what do you get?”

“Another day older and deeper in debt.”


	2. Zombie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arcade games, zombies, Madonna. Escapism is the watchword.

Casey’s hand is on the doorknob when Mick snarls at him. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?” There’s the harsh clatter of ice against the side of his glass, and then cursing. “Now look, you’ve gone and made me spill my Jack.”

Casey closes his eyes, breathes deeply, and forces his face into what he hopes is the right mix of respect and machismo, though he already knows he’s gotten it wrong. “Sorry, dad. David’s picking me up. We’re gonna go out for a while. If that’s still ok?”

“Where are you going?” There’s a long pause, the loud smack of Mick’s lips against the glass echoing in the room. “You ought not waste that boy’s time. I can tell he’s a good boy. A real man.”

“Um, I dunno, the arcade, maybe?” Casey says, and he’s mumbling, he can hear that he’s mumbling, and Mick does _not_ like mumbling. “He likes the arcade, dad. It’s cool, really. He likes to go.”

Mick snorts, setting his glass down heavily. The ice rattles, signalling that all of the Jack is consumed. “Yeah, I’m sure. You get me that bottle on the kitchen counter and then get out of my sight.”

Casey nearly falls over his own feet rushing into the kitchen to grab the unopened fifth. Without asking, he also opens the fridge and find the mostly-empty bottle of Pepsi. It’s easy to find; there’s not much else in there. He sets the Jack and the pop on the end table next to his dad’s chair and tries to back away without looking like he’s backing away.

When he’s made it to the door, Casey quickly pulls it open and steps outside, closing the door behind him. David isn’t there yet, and it’s cold, but it’s better to wait outside than in. It’s really always better to be out than in, but lately, even more so. Luckily, Casey only has to wait for a few minutes before David’s truck rounds the corner and pulls to a careful stop. There was a fresh coat of snow overnight, and only the middle of Casey’s street is clear. The doors unlock, and Casey crunches through the snow to get to the passenger side.

“Hi,” he says, pulling himself up into the truck. He tries to muster up a big smile, because it’s always good to see David, but Casey just feels so _tired_.

“Hey,” David responds. “Everything okay?”

Casey shrugs a little. “It is how it is. Glad I’m going out somewhere for a while.” He tugs down on the cuffs of his jacket, where his wrists are already starting to stick out a little, which is kinda of awful, since it’s the last one that even fits, even if it’s not really warm enough.

“Okay,” David nods, but doesn’t press. David never presses, and that means Casey doesn’t have to lie out loud.

“So, um, you looking forward to watching the Super Bowl tonight?” Casey asks, just looking for something, anything, to talk about.

“I’d like it better if the Browns had made it!” David says, smiling slightly. “But yeah, even if I’m not a huge Madonna fan. I guess halftime will be a good time to stock up on my wings and nachos,” he adds wryly.

“She has scary arms,” Casey says. “She kind of looks like a handful of Slim-Jims in a blonde wig.”

“My dad actually loved her early stuff,” David laughs. “But then she got weird, I guess.”

“Do you ever sometimes feel like you’re looking into Lady Gaga’s future?” Casey asks. “Like, look at Lady Gaga and then look at Madonna, because, you know. That could be her in thirty years!”

“Nah, I look at Bowie.”

“Ooh, yeah, Bowie could be future-Gaga, too!”

“Now _that_ would be a halftime show.”

“Or if Madonna and Bowie got their genes all mixed up, and then solar rays kind of mutated it...”

“Love child. You’re right. Lady Gaga is their love child.” David shakes his head. “Why has no one realized this yet?”

“They aren’t as smart as we are!” Casey grins at Dave. “Do you think she has mutant super powers or something? I bet she can regenerate. Oh! Or shoot some kind of beams, don’t you think?”

“Have you been watching the early morning movies on ScyFy again?”

“Maybe,” Casey confesses, a little sheepishly. “They’re just so _cool_. I love the rubber masks.”

David laughs as he parks the truck at the arcade. “The special effects are definitely, um, special.”

“What are you talking about?” Casey banters back. “Those are top notch! You can’t even hardly see the strings on the space ships in some of them!”

“Personally I love the price tags on the costumes!” They head towards the arcade, wading through the slush, and Casey does his best to ignore the icy water seeping through the side of his shoe and into his sock.

“When I grow up, I’m going to be a ScyFy morning movie monster actor,” Casey announces. “How about you? Want to run away to...well, I don’t think they make them in Hollywood. Probably Toronto or El Paso or Minneapolis or some place. We can run away there and be monsters. The movie kind, not the Gaga kind.”

It’s silly how much Casey wishes David would just say yes, even though he knows there’s no way they’re actually running away to any of those places, to be movie monsters or otherwise.

“I’m already headed to the zombie capital. Sure you don’t want to be a zombie instead? Atlanta’s got zombies and vampires.”

Casey grins at David. “I do a mean shamble! Wanna see me shamble?”

“See if you can convince Brett you really are a zombie, he might give you extra tokens.”

Casey does a brief, but enthusiastic, stumbling shamble as they enter the arcade. He notices David trying to hide a laugh as Casey intentionally bumps into the counter, making what he thinks is a pretty respectable zombie moan. “Hey Brett. I need change for my five, and my friend here needs brains. Your brains, specifically.” David jerks a thumb towards Casey, who makes another eerie noise that sounds pretty realistic.

Brett blinks at them. “Heyyy.” He slides a small cup with twenty quarters to David, then looks enquiringly at Casey. “Brains?”

“Yep. Absolutely. Or some change. It’s your choice, Brett.”

“That’s really awesome, dude.” Brett grins. “Here, zombie-man. Have fun playing!” He pushes two cups towards Casey, then wanders off.

“I don’t think he was convinced,” Casey says, shaking himself a little to work the zombie out of his arms and legs. “I think I should have gone with a little more groan and a little less shamble.”

“Nah, too much groan and you sound too much like a ghost instead of the undead.”

“Is there some kind of sliding scale of groans I should know about?” Casey asks, picking up the cups of coins. “Like on one end you’ve got shambling undead, and on the other end, it’s like adult film or something.” He feels his cheeks get hot. “That would be kind of bad to mix up, I guess.”

David coughs, almost violently, leaning against the closest game and burying his face in the crook of his elbow. When he finally straightens, he looks determined. “So, uh, what game first?”

“Are you okay, David?”

“Yeah, I uh. You know, I’m just gonna run to the restroom while you get started.”

“Oh, okay,” Casey says, watching David disappear towards the back of the arcade. When David is out of sight, Casey digs his thumb into the crook of his elbow, muttering “so stupid” to himself. What was he thinking, saying something like that? _Stupid, stupid, stupid._ Now David is uncomfortable and Casey just hopes they can both pretend he didn’t say something embarrassing and dumb, once David gets back.

Casey flings himself down into one of the seats of a two-person driving game, and rests his forehead against the steering wheel.

“Hey, your head bothering you?” David asks suddenly from behind him, his voice back to normal and no trace of his cough.

“Oh, no, I’m fine. Just, um. Yeah, do you want to race?” Casey glances up at David and indicates the seat next to him with a little jerk of his head.

“Bring it,” David says with a grin, sitting down and feeding his tokens into the game.


	3. Episode 3x18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn Hudson isn't stupid. He knows when someone is keeping a secret.

Sunday begins like a completely normal day, which means Finn finds himself in front of the refrigerator in his boxer shorts and his McKinley basketball T-shirt, drinking orange juice out of the carton as quietly as possible, so that Kurt doesn’t notice and come in and yell at him to not drink the orange juice out of the carton in his underwear, or at all, and doesn’t he know that’s how diseases are spread?

Finn personally figures that nothing’s going to live for very long in orange juice, and anyway, he’s planning to come back later and polish off the carton, but he doesn’t feel like getting yelled at, so, yeah, quiet. Besides, sneaked orange juice tastes _way_ better than regular orange juice. He feels a little bit like Indiana Jones and has a weird mental image of swapping Kurt for a bag of sand. Finn wipes his mouth on the back of his hand and goes back up stairs, tiptoeing down the hall—well, not literally tiptoeing, but walking really quiet—so Kurt doesn’t hear him and suspect Finn has been doing the underwear–and–orange juice combo again, and also so he doesn’t bug his mom.

It’s sad, really, how his mom is getting old now. She was always a morning person when Finn was little, but lately, she’s started sleeping in a lot later, and she even took a couple naps over the past week. That’s getting old, though, Finn figures, and it’s sad that it’s happening to his mom already, especially with Finn and Kurt going off to college next year. His mom and Burt have each other to look after themselves, but without kids in the house, they may end up being those old people who eat dinner at four o’clock and go to bed at 5:30.

Finn pulls on some jeans and tosses a hooded sweatshirt on over his T-shirt, because like Kurt always says, _layers_. That’s totally the answer to just about everything. Finn looks down the hall and sees Kurt’s door is ajar, so he creeps down the hall and pokes his head in the door. Kurt’s sitting at his computer, clicking away through something, still wearing his fleecy pajama pants and a sweatshirt that Finn is 99% sure belongs to Puck, because Kurt wouldn’t ever buy something like that on purpose. Also, Finn has seen Puck wearing it.

“Whatcha working on?” Finn asks, and Kurt jumps.

Kurt gives Finn an odd look, like he’s sizing him up, before answering. “Several things,” he says slowly. “At the moment, looking for very old, very cheap cars.”

“Oh,” Finn says, trying to remember if they’ve talked about this before and he’s supposed to know _why_ Kurt would be looking for old cars. “Uh, so, why?” he finally says, deciding that no, they haven’t had this conversation before.

“Casey’s birthday is next month,” Kurt begins. “With the way things seem to be rough for him at home, I thought I’d see what I could find. I could spend $100 and ten hours and he’d have reliable transportation at least.”

“Aww, dude,” Finn says, feeling a rush of brotherly affection. “That’s so sweet. You know, I bet we could take up a collection or something to pay for it, and maybe I could even… I dunno, help you or something?” Finn’s not _great_ with cars, but Kurt is, and Finn could carry stuff or reach the high shelves or something.

Kurt does that little bobble–head motion, tilting his head from side to side, before answering. “Well. The likeliest prospect so far needs some bodywork. I’m sure you’d be pretty useful for that.” Kurt’s eyes gleam for a moment. “But I get the engine and the transmission.”

“You and your cars, dude,” Finn laughs. “If only everybody else knew your deep, dark car secret, you know they’d be bugging you for, I dunno, like racing stripes or free tires or something.” He sits down on Kurt’s bed and flings himself back onto a pillow. “It’s awesome that you wanna do that, though. Casey’s kind of like our PFLAG mascot and I bet everybody would want to help out.”

“That’s true.” Kurt nods. “And he should really have a proper emergency kit, and a AAA membership, too.”

“Ooh, and like a gas card or something,” Finn suggests. “We could make him a car gift basket. Or, I guess the car is kind of like the basket. We could put the stuff in the car, and then put a bow on it.” Finn looks at Kurt, and seeing no immediate reaction, says, “On the car. Not the stuff.”

Kurt giggles and makes that funny face he makes sometimes. “Or both. But yes, that would be good. Puck’s going to get him a job. Casey may not like us very much. ‘Happy birthday! Have a job and a car to take care of!’”

Finn rolls his eyes, because the idea of Casey not liking _anybody_ , other than maybe Jojo and Fordham, is sort of ridiculous. “Are you kidding? This is Casey we’re talking about. Oh, and speaking of, you should see if Karofsky wants to pitch in, or I guess, I could see if he does, if you don’t want to.”

“I thought I’d email most of the regular PFLAG attendees,” Kurt responds. “I’m sure David would like to, though.”

“We could probably muscle over Rickenbacker,” Finn says. “I think he still feels guilty. We can be all, ‘Hey, Rick, you need to go buy Casey a gas card ‘cause of how your former buddies make him miserable’.”

Kurt snorts. “Masters of the guilt trip, we are.”

“Dude,” Finn agrees, “we are masters of _everything_.” Finn hauls himself back up to his feet, groaning dramatically, because that’s fun to do, something. “Ok, I’m gonna go do some stuff. I’ll see you around later.”

“Puck and I are going to pick you up at 6:20 instead of 6:50, okay?”

Finn narrows his eyes at Kurt. “Why? Is this one of those interventions? Because, I swear, I didn’t drink out of the carton this time.”

Now Kurt raises one eyebrow. “Which means you did, and you’re feeling guilty.” He shakes his head, and Finn shrugs, because, yeah, Kurt’s right. “But no, no intervention.” Kurt smiles nicely, with a lot of teeth. “You’ll see this evening.”

“I don’t _wanna_ wait until this evening,” Finn whines, trying his best grumpy face on Kurt, who ignores it completely. Waste of a good grumpy face, and it _was_ a really great one. “Ok, fine,” he sighs. “6:20.”

“Lovely. Later, waffle.”

“Hasta this evening, pancake.”

Finn wanders back out of Kurt’s room on a mission to find some coffee, now that his orange juice has settled. When he gets into the kitchen, Burt’s already in there, scooping grounds into the filter.

“Hey, Burt,” Finn says. “Where’s mom at?”

Burt makes a face that Finn almost, but doesn’t quite recognize. What _is_ that face? “Uh, I’m letting her sleep in a little. She’s been working really hard lately. They’re doing that thing at work.”

Finn doesn’t know about a _thing_ at his mom’s work, but whatever, he’ll roll with it. “Oh, yeah. Ok, that’s cool.”

Burt finishes making the coffee and Finn paces around the kitchen for a while, waiting for the coffee to brew. When it looks just about done, Finn grabs the pot from the coffee maker and pours himself a mug, even though there’s still a little bit of coffee streaming out of the little filter holder thingy. Burt sighs and shakes his head.

“How do you make it through every day without lighting yourself on fire, kid?”

Finn shrugs. “Just lucky, I guess.” He’s wondered that himself, actually, ever since the George Foreman shoe incident, and also that time he tried to use his mom’s hair straightener thing to iron the collar of his shirt. He still has that shirt, but he doesn’t ever wear it, because of the singed collar. It smells kind of like burned toast now, anyway.

Thinking about burned toast makes Finn hungry, so he grabs a foil packet of Pop-Tarts and his coffee cup before heading back up to his bedroom, where he makes a great show of working on homework, without actually accomplishing much of anything. Still, it looks good when his mom finally comes out of her bedroom, wrapped in her fluffy, sparkly pink robe that Kurt says looks like something a drag queen threw out… but never in front of Finn’s mom.

“Hey, mom,” Finn calls out, and she gives him a weak wave as she walks by, smiling at his awesome homework–doing skills. Or she’s humoring him, but whatever. She looks happy, if tired, and Burt must be right about whatever’s going on at work. They should cut her a little more slack, because she is getting old and everything.

 

Finn gives up on faking homework by lunch time, but by that point, he’s gotten pretty into some YouTube videos that Mike sent him (in an email titled ‘ND should do these’). He snags some cold pizza from the fridge, which he’d stuffed in the back a couple days ago in an effort to make himself forget it was in there so he’d have it for lunch on Sunday. So, score! Totally worked! Pizza in hand—what his mom doesn’t know won’t hurt him—he flops back onto his bed and clicks on the last link from Mike.

He’s about to pee himself laughing and that’s when Kurt comes swinging through the doorway. No, seriously, he grabs hold of the door frame and kind of swings himself in, and it’s very showtunesy or whatever. Finn would be impressed if he weren’t trying hard not to pee over laughing so hard at this video.

“Funny YouTube?” Kurt asks archly.

“You’ve gotta watch this one!” Finn says, restarting the video. “Warning: contains strong language, dude. Also, you might wanna go pee first.”

“Like dick?” Kurt blinks innocently. “Or is it too soon for dick jokes?”

“I’m not giving that any dignity, man,” Finn says, pushing his laptop a little further in Kurt’s direction. “Just _watch_ it. _Lower the muthafucka!_ ” Finn can’t contain his laughter, because it’s just so damn funny.

“Too soon, then,” Kurt muses, but then falls silent except for occasional bursts of laughter as he watches the video. “I have a new phrase in my life,” he says with a sigh as it ends.

“Fuck shit stack!” Finn hoots. “Is that not the funniest thing you’ve ever heard? I’m gonna be saying that, like, _all_ over the place!” He grins at Kurt, because it’s awesome that Kurt can appreciate the beauty that is ‘Fuck Shit Stack,’ and actually want to _quote_ it. Finn would pay actual cash money for a chance to hear Kurt say it, in fact. He should talk to Puck about that; maybe they could set something up.

“If you wanna see something even funnier, here’s a video of it being sung by the My Little Ponies,” Finn offers, clicking on another link.

“Oh, god, you’re a Brony?” Kurt groans and shakes his head. “No. No ponies. Can I get a ride?”

“I think they’re probably too small for that, dude. Also, they aren’t real.”

“In your truck, not on fictional candy–colored horses.”

“Oh, then yeah, you can get a ride,” Finn says, scratching his head and continuing to watch Fluttershy sing about a fuck shit stack. “As soon as this is over.”

Kurt rolls his eyes but doesn’t argue or anything, just stands up and leans against the doorframe. It’s kind of funny how loudly someone can lean on a doorframe, or maybe loud isn’t the right word, but whatever Kurt is doing, Finn can’t help but looking over at him and feeling like he oughta turn off the YouTube.

“Well, I guess we can go on and go,” he offers. “I can always watch this again later.”

Kurt still doesn’t say anything, just looks sorta glad and relieved and pitiful, probably without meaning to look all those things. Finn grabs his car keys and the two of them climb into the truck, Kurt not really saying much of anything on the short drive over to the Starbucks.

“Tell Puck hey for me,” Finn says to Kurt, as Kurt gets out of the truck. “Or, I mean I guess I can tell him hey later tonight.”

Kurt looks amused and raises one eyebrow slightly. “However you like. Thanks for the ride, Finn.” Finn gives Kurt a thumbs up. Dude probably needs it, looking all down and stuff like he is.

With several hours to kill and already making a good showing of kinda attempting to sort of work on his homework, Finn figures he can probably justify taking himself to a movie, or maybe bowling, or maybe he’ll just go grab some fries and a pop and drive around listening to music.

After an hour and a half of driving around eating fries, Finn’s bored and heads back home. His mom is always yelling at him to not talk on his phone while he’s driving, because he’ll run over a squirrel or a kid or a postman or something. Finn hasn’t actually done that, well, in a while anyway, but he figures it’s better to be safe than sorry. Once he’s back in the driveway, he dials Rachel’s number.

“Hello?” Rachel sounds breathless and maybe a little surprised, like she always does, as if she can’t believe someone is calling her.

“Hey, you,” Finn says. “I was just thinking about you. Well, I was thinking about you like twenty minutes ago, but I had to drive back home. You know how my mom is about the phone.”

Rachel giggles. “Hi. I do know. Your mother’s right, you know. What were you doing out?”

“Well, I had to take Kurt over to Starbucks to meet up with Puck, and then I thought, well, it’s Sunday and I’ve got nothing going on, right? So I drove around and ate fries and listened to this new playlist that I’ve been working on,” Finn explains, and then he winces, because he kinda really hopes she doesn’t ask him about his playlist. He’s a crappy liar and it’s not like with the Puck and Kurt thing, where he can feel all _moral_ or whatever.

“Is something wrong with Kurt’s Nav?” Rachel asks, sounding kind of worried.

“Nah, it was just one of Puck’s nights to hang onto it, so he doesn’t have to walk in the cold and get frostbite, and have his parts fall off.”

“Oh.” Rachel’s probably blinking a little, based on the sound of her voice. “Frostbite _is_ a serious problem,” she adds, sounding more vigorous after just a moment.

“But anyway, we’re gonna be early tonight,” Finn says, opening the front door to his house and trying to get out of his coat without taking the phone off his ear. It doesn’t work. “Hang on a sec.” He wrangles the coat off and puts the phone back. “Sorry. Coat issues. So, Kurt says that we’re gonna be like a half hour early for reasons I’m not allowed to know, but he promises aren’t awful.”

Rachel laughs again, and it’s one of those awesome movie star laughs she makes sometimes, a little too loud, but really happy. “All right. I’ll be sure to tell Dad and Daddy. I think Daddy’s going to be out tonight, though.”

“Oh yeah? Where’s he headed off to?”

“Some kind of community action meeting? I don’t know,” Rachel admits. “Daddy likes to think he can change the world, or at least Lima.”

“Your dads are awesome,” Finn says, warmly. “He’s probably right about that kind of stuff. I mean, I don’t know if someone like me could do it, but people like Mr. Hiram, and hell, Kurt, they probably can. Look at how much has changed because of PFLAG, you know?”

“That’s true!” Rachel says brightly. “It just seems like it moves so slowly sometimes.” She pauses for a minute and then continues. “Ooh, that reminds me, Tina and Brittany and I were talking, are we going to add another rehearsal or two?”

“That’s what I’ve been thinking. I mean, now that football’s over, I’m thinking we could work something in on Fridays,” Finn suggests. “Not late or anything, but after school. Or another day, I don’t remember everybody’s work schedules. Should probably write that stuff down. All I can ever remember is _no Tuesdays_ , but that’s been drilled into my head, so…”

“Not even Tuesday mornings? I’m just worried, Finn, Brittany was gone for auditions and then Mike will be and so will I, and then Noah and Kurt. It’s a lot of times that we won’t have everyone there!” Rachel’s voice gets faster and higher as she talks, clearly working herself up.

“Rach, you have _got_ to calm down,” Finn laughs. “Seriously, you’re getting more stressed about this than me, and that’s, like, a lot of stress. You’ll make yourself sick.”

“Sick! What if someone gets sick? You know, I heard there’s a nasty flu going around the underclassmen!”

“Breathe, Rach.”

“I’m breathing, I’m breathing!” Finn can hear Rachel muttering to herself, the words ‘gold’ and ‘trophy’ vaguely decipherable, along with something about ‘Tony.’

“Hey, don’t sweat it, ok? We’ll work out a schedule. I promise, it’ll be first thing on our agenda tonight, adding at least one more weekly practice we can all make,” Finn says, trying to keep his voice as calming as possible, though he suspects he might actually end up sounding more sleepy than anything else. “Let’s talk about how pretty you look today instead.”

“You can’t even see me!” It works, though, because she giggles again, and sounds a lot calmer. “I wish you could come over earlier, but Dad and I are going to watch _Legally Blonde_ this afternoon and we haven’t had a _Legally Blonde_ –a–thon in ages.”

“Well, we’ll do something some time this week, just you and me,” Finn promises. “Anything you want to do, even if it’s a movie I don’t want to see.”

“Aww, you’re so sweet, Finn,” Rachel says, and Finn can practically hear her smiling. “All right. I do have to go now but I’ll see you at 6:30, okay?”

“Ok, Rach. I’ll see you later.” Finn hangs up and heads to the kitchen for some Ben & Jerry’s. He stashed the last of the What a Cluster under a pack of steaks in there. When he opens the freezer, though, he can’t find the stupid thing anywhere. Come to think of it, the pack of steaks is gone, too. So weird.

 

Puck and Kurt pull up just a few minutes before Finn was expecting them, even with Kurt’s warning about being early. By the time Finn wrestles on his boots and his coat, Puck’s half over the center console and Kurt’s not all that visible underneath him.

“Dude!” Finn says, as he pulls open the back door. “I didn’t pay for a ticket to this!” Still, his protests are mostly half–hearted, because he’s pretty much used to Puck and Kurt being all over each other at this point, and anyway, Kurt looks a lot less pitiful than he did earlier today. Happier Kurt is a good thing… but that doesn’t mean Finn’s not giving them crap about the free show.

Puck just gives him the finger, though, and another ten seconds at least pass before they separate. “You sayin’ something?” Puck asks, shooting Finn a grin as he settles back into the passenger seat.

“Yeah,” Finn snorts. “I was saying oh how sweet, is that how you’re gonna kiss at your wedding?”

“No, we’re going to have one of those theme weddings where everyone wears leather,” Kurt replies. “That’s how the attendants will kiss.”

“Free love.”

“Awesome!” Finn says. “I can wear my butt–less chaps!”

“See, it will be economical for all.” Kurt smirks a little. “But to be in theme, only same–sex kissing.”

Finn almost chokes on his laugh, but recovers in time to force out, “Yeah, already called dibs on Mike.”

“We’ll be sure to get pictures.”

“Send ‘em back to McKinley to hang up in PFLAG meetings, dude,” Finn says, finally recovering from his laughing fit. “You think they’re gonna still do those when we’re gone?”

“They’d better,” Kurt says in his bossy voice. “But there are plenty of underclassmen who can run it.”

“You could totally tell Casey it’s what he has to do in exchange for the car,” Finn suggests. “Ooh, we could paint, like, ‘PFLAG MOBILE’ on it!”

“He has to drive it home, dude,” Puck points out. “Probably not going to go over well with his parents.”

Finn flinches. He doesn’t like to think about that, honestly, and then he feels guilty that he has the luxury to forget about other people’s sucky parents. “Yeah, I guess that’s true. Sucks, but true. So, maybe I’ll paint _my_ truck to say ‘PFLAG MOBILE’ on it.”

“Go for it,” Kurt says, shaking his head as he parks in front of Rachel’s house. “Make sure that you use rainbow lettering.”

“I’ll get Brittany to help me.”

Puck and Kurt look sort of secretive as they climb out, Puck grabbing his guitar and his backpack both before they head up the stairs and knock. Finn’s even more curious, now, about what exactly the two of them have planned. He reminds himself it’s supposed to be good, but who knows whether or not Kurt’s version of good and bad match up with Finn’s?

Finn leans around Puck and knocks a second time. Rachel flings open the door a few second later, running footsteps audible just before that. “Hi! Sorry! Dad and I were just putting up our dinner leftovers and getting out snacks!”

“That’s cool,” Finn says, leaning around Puck again, only this time to give Rachel a kiss. So, maybe it’s a little bit more of a passionate kiss than Finn would usually give her at the front door, but after what happened back in the Nav, Puck and Kurt can just suck it up and watch Finn kiss his girlfriend some. Take _that_!

“Oh, are we playing that game?” Puck laughs. “I don’t think you want to play, you’ll lose.”

“What game?” Rachel asks as she pulls away, looking confused. “Come in, it’s cold!”

“No game,” Finn says, shaking his head. “Puck’s just loopy from all the coffee fumes. I’m pretty sure it causes brain damage or liver damage or something. It’s very sad.”

They follow Rachel into the house and straight down into the basement, where Finn grabs Rachel by the hand and squeezes her fingers a little. He was right, by the way, when he said she looked pretty today. He could hear it on the phone; that’s probably why they call it _tele_ pathy.

“Ok, so what’s the big secret, you two,” Finn says, dragging Rachel into a chair with him. She only struggles a little bit before giving up and collapses into his lap.

“No secret,” Kurt says after a moment. He and Puck were doing that weird thing where they seem to have an entire conversation without talking but apparently Kurt is the spokesman now. “Just a surprise.”

Puck nods and unzips his backpack, pulling out a thin stack of paper that he hands to Kurt, and then getting out his guitar. “If, you know, you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” Finn says, and Rachel nods, bouncing just a little.

“If you’re sure,” Kurt smirks, then hands Finn and Rachel both a few of the pieces of paper in the stack.

“What is this?” Finn asks, squinting at the paper. “I don’t think I recognize this. Am I supposed to?”

“Not unless you’re a psychic,” Puck retorts. Finn considers that for a moment, because he was right about Rachel being pretty today and he was totally spot-on about the whole Puck and Kurt thing, but that isn’t really the same as being actually psychic, so he shrugs.

“Is it…?” Rachel starts, flipping through the pages. “Oooh, is this for Nationals?”

“It can be.” Kurt shrugs.

“Is this a duet?” Finn asks, leaning over to look at Rachel’s paper. “It looks like it’s a duet. Is it for _us_?”

“Well, we could see if Artie and Mike were dying to duet, but yeah, the _plan_ was the two of you,” Puck snorts.

Finn makes a face at Puck. “I guess it could be for you guys, since, you know, New York. Not Ohio, right?” He reads through the lyrics again and looks up at Kurt, tilting his head a little and trying to do the silent conversation thing, but either it doesn’t work or Kurt’s ignoring him, because Kurt doesn’t say anything. Maybe that’s better, because Finn’s not sure he really needs to know yet if the lyrics are supposed to be about Kurt and Puck or about Finn and Rachel. Either option’s kind of sad, really, even though the song looks awesome.

“So. Do you want to try it?” Kurt asks directly after a moment.

Rachel answers with an enthusiastic yes, and Finn just says, “sure,” because he wants to hear the song, but at the same time, it’s going to be… weird, to sing this stuff with Rachel. _To_ Rachel. Yeah, he hopes the song is about Kurt and Puck, or that Rachel, at least, thinks so.

Rachel already has the keyboard set up, so Kurt walks over to it with his own pages of music, and Puck just props himself on the counter with his guitar. The two of them do another one of those silent conversations and start playing the music.

They fumble their way through the song, the same as any first run-through, and when the music ends, Rachel’s beaming. “Oh, boys! That’s amazing! When did you find the time?”

Puck shrugs. “Here and there.”

“That was… wow, yeah, it was really good,” Finn says, and he’s trying, really he is, to muster up the amount of enthusiasm the song—which really is incredibly good—deserves. He catches Kurt giving him a weird look, so Finn tries the silent communication thing, trying to pass along to Kurt that yeah, he likes the song, but yeah, it makes him sad, and also, it just brings up all the ways in which this whole thing is… well, pretty much exactly how the song puts it. Complicated.

Kurt makes a little face that seems sympathetic and tilts his head, and then nods fractionally. Finn feels a moment of powerful euphoria that he communicated with his brain, but it passes quickly and he feels kind of like he’s been hollowed out or something. Not in a gross way, just in an emotional way or whatever.

“It’s a little hard to get the sound they’re usually looking for,” Puck says, and it’s not really clear if he didn’t catch the silent conversation or he’s ignoring it. “I have the parts written out for bass and drums and sax, too.”

“It’s wonderful,” Rachel gushes. “Finn, we can start practicing this _now_ , and Mike will have plenty of time to work out choreography, and we’ll be able to pick the rest of our set knowing what this sounds like already!”

“Yeah, that’ll be great,” Finn agrees, partly to make Rachel happy, partly because the song _is_ good, and an even bigger partly because it gives him something to work on, and Finn is sort of desperately in need of a project to obsess over. Working from scratch on a brand new song might be just the thing to balance out the lack of football and the songs for Regionals already being past the development stage. More work is good.

“Here.” Puck reaches into his backpack again and hands them each a CD. “There’s the music.”

“Very thorough,” Finn says, nodding in a way he hopes appears dignified and professional. “Excellent job, you two.”

Before Kurt can reply, the sound of the doorbell echoes through the house, and Rachel jumps up. “Is it seven already? I’ll be right back!” She scrambles up the stairs in a hurry.

It doesn’t take much longer for everyone else to show up, Finn is pleased to see, and soon they’re all sprawled or sitting or leaning around the basement, looking at Finn like he’s got the answers. Which, technically he’s supposed to, but his brain is still lingering back on the new song, and he’s having a hard time snapping back to Regionals and new rehearsal times.

Finally, he shakes his head a little. “Ok, guys. I think we need to start off by setting up some new rehearsal times. Throw some times and days out there.”

“Monday after school,” Mercedes says.

“Working.” Kurt’s response is quick.

“How about Wednesday morning before school?” Artie suggests. “I don’t mind showing up early.”

“Working,” Puck says, looking amused.

“Thursday at midnight,” Brittany suggests, and when everyone stares at her, she says, “Nobody’s working then.”

“Yeah, but most of them have a curfew,” Santana points out, and Brittany nods her head like she hadn’t thought about that one.

Finn plows ahead with his suggestion. “I was thinking we could try Friday afternoons, right after school, during the time we used to have practice. It would still leave plenty of time for date nights for people who have dates.”

“Some people have figs,” Kurt says, and Finn snorts. Nobody has figs. Who even knows how to eat those, other than in Newtons?

“I think we need to add two rehearsals,” Rachel inserts. “Because of all our absences for auditions, and if someone is ill, that will throw us off, too.”

“Not Saturdays,” Sam hastens to add. “I mean, I can do the occasional Saturday, but.”

“Yeah, and it doesn’t do us too much good to cluster the rehearsals like that, anyway,” Finn agrees. “We need to space them out more. What mornings do people _not_ work?”

“Tuesday and Friday,” Puck replies, looking sort of resigned.

“Oh, we can’t do Friday!” Tina exclaims. “That’s our coffee day.”

“No Tuesdays,” Finn says, firmly. “People have, uh, _things_.” Let them think he has things. Whatever. He’s not going to risk bodily harm by agreeing to Tuesdays for anything.

“But Finn!” Rachel protests, pouting in that adorable way she does. “It would make so much sense, especially since Monday isn’t a possibility.”

Finn glances at Puck and Kurt in turn, seeing if he can continue the silent conversation streak. Finn alone isn’t going to win this argument with Rachel; Kurt and Puck realize that, right? If eyebrows can communicate ‘guys, help me out here’ then Finn’s are definitely doing their best to say that.

But Kurt’s not even looking at him, back to looking more pitiful again, and when Mike speaks up, nodding at Rachel, it’s almost all over. “No, Rachel has a good point. We’d still have a day or two of rest for our muscles but enough practice to keep them limber.”

Kurt looks defeated, and Finn hates to be the one who has to add to that, but dammit, Mike’s right, and it _is_ before school. Maybe that won’t be so bad and nobody will have to hunt him down and do something horrible to him for ruining their day.

“Yeah, ok,” Finn says, making a point of not sounding too excited about it. “I guess that’s the only day that’s really going to work for everyone.” He shoots a small apologetic glance in Puck’s direction. Puck’s shoulders are slumped a little and he overall just looks like a dude on the losing end of a boxing match. Only not actually beat up. Just, like, metaphorically or whatever.

The issue of rehearsals settled, however unhappy the outcome made certain people, Finn transitions everyone into actually rehearsing at _this_ rehearsal. By the end of practice, spirits seem higher, and by the time Finn is climbing into the back of Nav, he’s feeling like things are right with the world again. At least, mostly.

Kurt drops Finn back off at the house and heads back out with Puck. Their goodbyes aren’t as perky as they could be and there’s no joking, so Finn figures they’re still mad about Tuesday. Well, he’s a little mad about it, too, but unless he really turns into the dictator Puck keeps saying he is, Finn isn’t sure what else he could have done. Still, it sucks, the whole thing kind of sucks, and when Finn goes into the kitchen to get the last of the Pop-Tarts, they’re gone, and _that_ sucks, too.

 

If Sunday started off normal and ended up feeling kind of weird, Monday starts off weird and just get weirder. Kurt hurries out of the house like his fancy–pants are on fire, probably still mad about Tuesday, and Burt’s in the kitchen cooking breakfast, which just isn’t something he _does_ on weekdays.

Finn finds himself glancing around the walls for shoes, even though it’s not Wednesday, because something feels wacky around here. He takes his time getting ready for school, accepts the plate of food Burt offers, and makes it to McKinley and in the door just in time, which he considers a tremendous success. No point in being earlier than you have to.

Puck is already there, cradling a cup of coffee protectively and looking troubled, or maybe disturbed. Finn looks at him worriedly.

“Dude,” he says, keeping his voice down. “What’s up with you?”

Puck looks at Finn as if he’s looking for something, and then frowns, like he didn’t find it. “Everything… normal? At home?” he finally says.

Finn shrugs. “Not really, now that you mention it. People are acting, like, _weird_ or whatever.” He shakes his head. “I mean, I figured Kurt was being all weird because of, you know,” he lowers his voice even further, “Tuesdays. But this morning, Burt cooked _breakfast_ He only does that on weekends or when he’s really stressed about something.”

Puck’s frown gets even more pronounced. “Kurt said something about a test? And he’d tell me later. Couldn’t talk about it here or now or something.”

“I don’t think Kurt’s got any tests at school this week,” Finn says. “Unless he means…” Finn feels his face draining of blood. “Well, last week, he was talking about, um. Blood tests or whatever.”

“He wasn’t talking about getting tests or whatever,” Puck says, almost dismissively. “Like, he’d already seen the results or something. I dunno.”

“That’s weird,” Finn says. “He wouldn’t tell you what was up?”

“No.” Puck shakes his head. “Just said later.”

“So strange. I thought you guys told each other everything.”

“Quiet, please!” Their teacher gives them a pointed look as she starts talking about the Industrial Revolution or something else involving steam. And infrastructure. She’s, like, obsessed with infrastructure.

When class is over, Puck bolts out of the classroom like he used to do but hasn’t all year long, and Finn stares after him, confused. As Finn gathers his own things together, Sam comes over and stands there for a minute. Finn lets him stand, because sometimes it’s funny to act like he doesn’t realize somebody needs to talk to him, and anyway, if Sam needs something, he should just say it.

“So…” Sam says slowly, looking over his shoulder, but the only person left in the classroom besides the teacher is Brittany. “Is everything okay with Kurt?”

Finn narrows his eyes a little. “Why, did you hear something?”

“You and Puck were a little loud.” Sam lowers his voice. “Britt’s a little worried, I think.”

“Well, I don’t know anything,” Finn says, and even though it’s true that he doesn’t know anything, he can tell that Sam doesn’t believe him.

“Okay.” Sam shrugs. “Just, you know. Let us know if there’s something we can do.”

“Uh, yeah. I’ll do that,” Finn says, giving Sam a look like he probably doesn’t plan on doing that at all.

“Later, dude. Oh, hey!” Sam brightens a little. “Schue didn’t give us an assignment, did he?”

“I think he forgot,” Finn says, laughing a little. “Rumor has it that he was out with Ms. P all weekend, and he was too busy to come up with something to dump on us last minute.” Of course, Finn totally just made up that rumor right now, but it’s probably true.

Sam laughs but makes a face. “So don’t want to think about that!” He heads out the door then with a last wave over his shoulder.

 

Finn wanders into the choir room during fourth period and notices some seriously weird looking coming at him from a few directions. Tina leans over and whispers something to Mercedes, and Brittany has that sad puppy face. Finn takes his seat, looking around at them with a raised eyebrow and a silent what–the–hell look, in hopes that his silent communication skills are improving. They don’t seem to be, because the girls keep on staring and whispering to each other until Puck and Rachel appear in the doorway.

Rachel is trying to get Puck to talk, but Puck’s just grunting and shaking his head, which it isn’t really like Puck to do that to Rachel, but maybe Puck’s still pissy about the Tuesday thing. When Kurt walks in, slow and with eyes downcast, the whispers renew, this time with Rachel joining in. Even Quinn, who finally bothers to show up just before the bell rings, keeps looking at Kurt all interested–like.

What the actual fuck is going on around here?

“Hey, guys!” Mr. Schue, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to think anything is weird. Of course, Schue probably, maybe spent the whole weekend with Ms. P, so who even knows how much he’s noticing. “I know, I know, I didn’t give you an assignment.” He holds his arms up defensively, like they’re going to attack him for it. Finn and Sam exchange a look, and Finn raises his eyebrows like ‘see, told you’. “I thought we’d talk a little bit about our set list for Regionals. Like, what kind of _message_ are we trying to send?”

Finn’s hand shoots up into the air and Mr. Schue nods in his direction. “How about _not_ stalking!”

There’s a round of laughter and a few claps from the rest of the glee kids, but not, Finn notices, from Kurt, who usually never misses an opportunity to diss on his ex–creeper. Finn looks over at Puck, but Puck’s looking at Kurt, almost staring, eyebrows raised and a little bit of what Finn would call worry on Puck’s face, even if Puck wouldn’t call it that.

“Well, that’s a good thing,” Mr. Schue says slowly. “Any other thoughts?”

“I think we should try to select pieces that speak to us and for us as a group, that express our collective voice,” Rachel parrots. It’s pretty much what Puck and the others said back before Christmas, but it still sounds really good.

“I like that, Rachel.” Mr. Schue nods slowly. “What kind of songs do you think would express that?”

They all exchange looks, some more uncomfortable than others, and Mike says, “What about that song about, uh, waiting on the world to change?” Everyone else nods in agreement, maybe a little too strong of agreement, since Mr. Schue gives them all that suspicious look.

“The John Mayer song?” Mr. Schue looks off into space for a minute. “I suppose that could work. Part of the song could be a featured soloist or two.”

“You know, Mr. Schue,” Artie says, sliding his glasses up his nose, a gesture Finn has started to realize means he’s about to run circles around somebody with words. “It would be non–traditional, but I think Santana’s voice would work very well with this song. You should consider having her as one of the soloists.”

If Mr. Schue looked kind of suspicious before, he looks really confused now, which means Artie’s glasses trick totally worked. “Wow, I wouldn’t have thought of that,” Mr. Schue admits. “Santana, would you be interested?”

“Totally.” Santana nods and attempts to look disinterested, but she’s definitely pleased that they’re pulling this off. “You know who else would do good with it? Sam.”

Schue looks even more baffled, looking from Santana to Sam to Artie and back again. “You’re right, Santana. Sam’s voice would be great for John Mayer.” He looks around the room again. “I have to say, you guys, I’m really impressed by how you’re putting aside past differences. It shows a lot of personal growth.”

Santana just smiles sweetly—too sweetly—and there’s a lot of nods. “I can work up some basic choreography, Mr. Schue,” Mike offers, and Mr. Schue nods his agreement to that, too.

“Well, great.” He smiles at them all fondly. “So, for the rest of the week, I guess think about songs that express your collective voice?”

“That’s a great idea, Mr. Schue,” Finn says, giving Schue his biggest, warmest grin. A little extra sucking up never hurts, and it definitely works, because Schue’s smile only widens.

“Does anyone have any other suggestions today?” There’s no real response, other than a few head shakes, until Rachel raises her hand.

“I’d like to sing a potential contender, Mr. Schuester. It’s by the Broadway great Mr. Andrew Lloyd Webber.” When she stands up, though, she turns and winks exaggeratedly where Mr. Schue can’t see. Finn bites down on a laugh and he can see others having the same problem. With a quick whisper to Brad, Rachel stands in the middle of the choir room and starts to belt out one of the songs from that musical with all the cats running around. ‘Technicolor Dream Cats’ or whatever it’s called.

 _Midnight, not a sound from the pavement  
Has the moon lost her memory?  
She is smiling alone  
In the lamplight, the withered leaves collect at my feet  
And the wind begins to moan_

Rachel is really hamming it up, striking extra–dramatic poses and doing little dance steps when there’s just music and no singing, and Mr. Schue looks like he needs some ExLax maybe.

 _Touch me! It's so easy to leave me!  
All alone with the memory of my days in the sun  
If you touch me, you'll understand what happiness is  
Look, the new day has begun_

As Rachel finishes, the entire choir room bursts into wild applause. Finn sees Santana dramatically wiping a fake tear away from her eye, and Puck has his hands pressed against his heart like it’s going to explode out of his chest, it’s all so awesome and beautiful. Rachel seems to be enjoying everyone’s performance nearly as much as she enjoyed her own, but the look of needing to rush to a bathroom only increases on Mr. Schue’s face.

“I… I’m not sure we can adapt that to a group number, Rachel,” he says finally. “I’m sorry. You’re right, it’s a classic song, but…”

“Mr. Schue,” Brittany says, “I think we’d all give up having a part just so Rachel can sing that as a solo.” She beams at Rachel and Finn realizes that while everybody else is joking, Brittany was actually really impressed by the song. Finn has a brief though that maybe Lord Tubbington likes this one or something.

“Unfortunately, it’s also a song that’s relatively overexposed,” Mr. Schue responds. “But it’s good to know that this is the type of message you’re all looking to send.”

“I just wanted to experiment with fur costuming,” Kurt says, the barest hint of a smile on his face, but his eyes are still glazed over. Now that Finn looks closer, Kurt’s hair isn’t as perfect as usual, and his outfit somehow seems less fabulous than Finn would expect. Finn was a little concerned this morning, but now he’s genuinely starting to worry about Kurt, because he’s not wearing a scarf or even one of his fancy belts, just, like, _normal_ boring–looking clothes.

What kind of test was Kurt talking about, why couldn’t he tell Puck, and where the hell is Kurt’s fabulousness? Something isn’t right.

“Why don’t you all head out a little early?” Mr. Schue smiles at them. “Extra time for lunch, right? See you Thursday!”

There’s a smattering of goodbyes and everybody heads to the door, though Tina, Mercedes, and Rachel cluster together momentarily and all turn to give Kurt a long look before Tina and Mercedes head off in one direction, and Rachel grabs Finn by the arm. Finn looks back at Kurt and he sees Puck hovering around him, all worried looking again.

“Finn! Do you know?” Rachel hisses, voice low.

“Do I know what?” Finn says, evasively, looking around to make sure no one else can hear them.

“About Kurt!” Rachel’s eyes are wide. “Is that why Noah was so short with me this morning? Because he’s worried?”

“Well, I thought it might be the Tuesday practice thing,” Finn confesses, “but then, in first period, Puck said something about some kind of test that Kurt was talking about. Not a school test, either, I don’t think, but neither one of us know what kind of test Kurt took!”

Rachel’s eyes are wide and fearful, and she wrings her hands. “Oh, no, Finn! What about Burt? And your mom? Are they worried?”

“Well, they’ve both been acting really weird lately,” Finn says, and it starts to dawn on him that, yeah, they really _have_ been acting weird. All that sleeping — what if his mom is depressed, because something’s… Finn doesn’t even want to think it, but what if something is wrong with Kurt? “Burt cooked _breakfast_ today!”

“Oh, no.” Rachel whimpers. “Finn!” She looks as if she’s about to burst into tears.

“Look,” Finn says, putting his arm around Rachel’s shoulders. “We don’t know anything yet. Maybe it’s nothing. I think we shouldn’t worry about it too much yet. Maybe?” He tries to sound convinced, but the more he thinks about it, the more signs he realizes he’s been seeing to something really being not right. Everything from his parents’ weird behavior to Kurt looking all pitiful and not wearing fancy clothes is starting to fit together into some big, awful puzzle. “We won’t worry yet,” he repeats, staunchly.

“Okay,” Rachel says quietly, and she tucks herself under Finn’s arm, pressing against his side. “If it is something bad…” She trails off and doesn’t finish the sentence.

“We won’t worry until we have more information, ok?”

Rachel nods, and Finn squeezes her a little closer, before steering both of them towards the cafeteria for lunch.

 

Finn doesn’t see Kurt for the rest of the day, not even after school, and Monday night is dance class with Rachel, anyway. He usually picks her up at around 5:30, because she likes to be early to their 6 o’clock class, and she likes to change her shoes there, because dance shoes shouldn’t be worn on blacktop of something like that. He likes her shiny shoes, and he loves the dresses she wears, that flare up and spread out into a circle when he spins her, and that’s about as far as he thinks about what they wear to dance class.

When Finn pulls up at Rachel’s house, she’s running out the door and to his truck before he can even turn it off.

“I didn’t want the truck to get cold inside!” she says, setting her shoe bag and purse on the floor by her feet. “Are you excited about class tonight?”

“Yeah, totally,” Finn says, and it’s even mostly true. Sure, he still feels like a total loser compared to the other couples, but last week, their instructor told Finn how much he’s improved, and that felt awesome. As he starts to back out of Rachel’s driveway, she leans over and kisses him on the cheek.

“Anything more about Kurt?” she asks, and even though her tone is light, Finn knows her well enough to hear the worry underneath it.

“Nothing. I didn’t see him for the rest of the day and he didn’t come home after school, at least not while I was there,” Finn says. “I mean, he was probably working or whatever, but…”

“Yes,” Rachel sighs. “I’m sure he was just at work.”

They sit in silence for the rest of the drive, but Rachel perks up a lot once they get to the dance place. Finn holds out an arm for her and escorts her inside, smiling and giggling, and he even helps her lace up her shiny swing dance shoes, planting a kiss on her knee after each shoe.

“What was that about?” Rachel asks, and Finn just shrugs.

“You being perfect, is all.” It makes her smile and duck her head, and so he takes advantage of that to kiss her on her silky hair.

By the time Finn stops kissing all over Rachel, the other four couples are there and they take their positions. Finn figured out by the second class that he had a huge advantage over the other couples, who are all fairly matched in size. Finn, on the other hand, is about three of Rachel, so while he doesn’t lift her or spin her with a lot of _grace_ , he gets her higher and flings her further than everyone else. By the end of class, she’s dizzy and laughing, her eyes are sparkling, and they’ve both mostly forgotten about whatever might or might not be going on with Kurt.

“You got some great height on that tonight, Finn!” his dance instructor says, and Finn practically struts out of class. When he drops Rachel off at her house, he steals about a dozen extra kisses from her, until she finally bats him away, laughing and fussing at him about her dads peeking through the windows.

Finn doesn’t think about Kurt again until he’s walking back up into his room. Kurt’s door is shut and his light is off, and Finn can’t tell if Kurt is still out or already in bed. Finn thinks about knocking, but just in case—on the _very_ off chance—something is wrong, Finn figures Kurt could probably use his sleep.

 

By morning, Finn has mostly forgotten why he was even worried. Of course, Kurt is fine. He and Rachel (and Sam and Brittany) just let themselves get caught up in a whole lot of nothing. When Finn takes a few steps down the hall to look in Kurt’s room, however, it’s empty, and Kurt’s Nav isn’t in the driveway, either, when Finn looks out the window. They’re already getting up earlier than normal for the glee rehearsal; Kurt getting up even early than that seems strange enough that it causes a little goldfish of worry to start wiggling away in Finn’s brain.

Finn drives to Rachel’s house to pick her up, which is a nice treat, but that worry in the back of his head even distracts him from how Rachel’s plaid skirt is actually on the short side this morning. They barely even make small talk as they ride to school, and Rachel finally says, “It’s Kurt, isn’t it?”

Finn grips the steering wheel harder. “I don’t know what it is,” he says, “just, Kurt was already long gone before I even got up this morning!”

They ride the rest of the way to school in silence. When they pull in to the parking lot, the Nav is already sitting there, and the front seats are empty. Finn and Rachel walk down to the auditorium and find it already unlocked, with Mike, Tina, and Artie already inside. Rachel looks sharply at Finn and then around the auditorium.

“Uh, where’s Kurt?” Finn asks, looking up the aisles and craning his neck to see into the wings of the stage.

“Kurt’s not here yet,” Tina replies, looking at Finn weirdly. “Don’t you _live_ with him?”

“He was already gone this morning when I got up,” Finn says, and the tiny wiggling goldfish of worry flops around. “The Nav was out in the parking lot, but it was empty.”

“Is something going on with him?” Artie asks. “I heard some stuff, but none of it made any sense.”

“He had some kind of tests,” Tina answers darkly. “And did you _see_ his clothes yesterday?”

“I’ve never seen him wear something like that out of the house,” Finn answers. “Oh man, that’s not good, is it?”

“He has different clothes for at home?” Mike asks, looking amazed.

“Well, I mean, yeah, you don’t think he wears all that stuff at—”

The auditorium doors creak open again, and Kurt walks through them a split second later, Puck right behind him. Every abruptly stops talking and turns to stare at Kurt. Puck looks exhausted, Kurt looks stressed and tired, and more importantly, Kurt’s clothes are just… they’re just _boring_ , grey and nothing shiny or colorful. Puck’s kind of hovering protectively around Kurt, which is even weirder, since that’s always more of Kurt’s kind of thing to do. It’s not painting a good picture, not at all.

“Hey, buddy!” Finn calls out, bracingly, forcing his face into the biggest smile he can muster. “How are you doing this morning?”

Kurt blinks at him, looking sort of hollow, and answers slowly. “Fine, Finn. How are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Finn answers. “Don’t worry about me. But, um, are you up for rehearsal today? If you need to sit this one out or something…”

“If we’re getting free passes out of rehearsal, tell me _before_ I get up early,” Kurt says dryly, stalking the rest of the way down the stairs and setting his bag down. “But why wouldn’t I be?”

“Uh, no real reason.” Finn sweeps a quick warning glance around the rest of the glee kids already present. “Just, you look, you know. Tired.”

“Thanks.” The glare Kurt sends at Finn doesn’t do much to reassure Finn that Kurt’s actually doing ok, but at least it gives Finn a reason to stop staring at Kurt. Puck’s glare doesn’t do anything but make Finn worry _more_ , so he’s not sure what Puck’s trying to accomplish with that one.

Sam, Mercedes, Quinn, Brittany, and Santana all arrive in the auditorium then, and Finn can shift his focus on herding everybody up on the stage like a bunch of cows or sheep, something that get herded, then he turns the rehearsal over to Mike.

Mike puts them through their paces, warm-ups and stretches and exercises before running through the choreography repeatedly, and then suggests that they finish with a full run-through. They finish in enough time for the ones who are changing clothes to change, and then they head off towards their first period classes.

Puck is out the door before Finn can snag him, so Finn has to hurry to catch up as the walk down the hall. “Dude,” Finn says, finally pulling up next to Puck. “What’s the rush?”

Puck looks at him blankly. “The bell rang. We have class. Remember?”

“What’s up with you this morning?” Finn asks. “Look, I know the Tuesday rehearsal thing sucks. Is that what it is?”

“I’m sure you know all about it,” Puck mutters, barely audible. “I didn’t know anything was ‘up’ with me.”

“Does this have something to do with what’s going on with Kurt?” Finn finally asks, as they’re about to enter the classroom.

“Nothing’s going on with Kurt.”

Finn frowns as they take their seat. “Seems like something’s going on, dude.”

“Just because he doesn’t want to tell the entire glee club his business doesn’t mean anything,” Puck points out. He lowers his voice a little, but not soon enough to keep Sam and Brittany from looking in his direction. “I mean, what is it you were doing last night? Want me to tell everyone that?”

“What? What are you even talking about, man?” Finn shakes his head. “And I’m not the entire glee club, I’m his _brother_. And I’m not stupid.”

“No one said you were,” Puck sighs, sounding weary. “Just… leave it, okay? He’ll tell you what he meant when he’s ready.”

Finn scowls at Puck and slides down low in his seat. “Yeah, whatever.” He sits through the rest of class in sullen silence, refusing to look in Puck’s direction, and storms out of class as soon as the bell rings. He pulls out his phone and texts Rachel.

 _Where are u? Something def up with Kurt_

 _Just arrived in math class. What is it????_

 _Dunno. Puck all pissy. Tell u more l8r_

Finn waffles—and that would be a funnier joke if he weren’t so worried about Kurt—between obsessively worrying about Kurt and sulking about Puck until glee. He tries to catch Rachel outside of the choir room, but she’s already inside, looking at Kurt critically like she could look through his brain and know exactly what’s going on with him. Which, maybe she can, because she always knows when Finn is looking at another girl’s boobs or when he’s only pretending to read and is actually drawing pictures in his text books.

Finn and Mike run them through rehearsal, and then Finn snags Rachel by the sleeve before she can disappear out the door with Tina.

“Finn!” Rachel turns to him quickly, looking anxious. “What is it?”

Finn looks around for spies or Jacob ben Israel, before he says, “I think there’s definitely something going on with Kurt. Puck was going on about Kurt not wanting all of glee to know his business, and that means that Kurt _has_ business for all of glee to know!”

“So Puck knows what it is?” Rachel bites on her lip. “Did he look worried?”

“He’s _Puck_ ,” Finn explains, shaking his head. “He never looks worried and he always _is_ worried, so how am I supposed to tell when he’s really worried or not?”

“I don’t understand that sentence,” Rachel confesses, then plows on. “It sounds like Puck is just… protecting Kurt?” she finishes uncertainly, like maybe that idea is as weird to her as it was to Finn.

“But why does he need to protect Kurt from _me_?” Finn asks. He’s really trying not to take it personally, but it’s not like he hasn’t protected Kurt and Puck’s secret since _June_. Why won’t Kurt trust him now? “I mean, I’m his _brother_. What if something’s seriously wrong with him, like he’s, I dunno, sick or something?”

“Maybe… maybe Puck’s protecting you, too,” Rachel says after a moment of quiet thought.

“From what? He’s my brother and if he’s got something wrong, I should be there helping him and supporting him.” Finn crosses his arms across his chest, not caring that he probably sounds like a four-year-old.

“I don’t know,” Rachel admits. She tucks herself under Finn’s arm. “Let’s go to PFLAG now.”

“Yeah,” Finn sighs. “Maybe we can figure more out then.”

They walk down the hall and into the PFLAG classroom, taking their usual seats, where Finn continues to eyeball Puck and Kurt suspiciously, while they studiously ignore him. For some reason, even though Kurt especially almost never eats during the meeting, both Kurt and Puck have big plates of the food that Mike’s mom sent in for the meeting. Finn looks at the plates, and then at Rachel, and then jerks his head in the direction of the plates. Rachel’s eyes widen a bit and then she looks alarmed.

As other students begin to filter into the classroom, Finn notices a handful of them casting curious or concerned looks in Kurt’s direction. Karofsky and Casey enter the classroom together, and even Casey seems more subdued than normal, leaning over to whisper something to Karofsky once they take their seats.

Kurt puts down his fork with about half of the food still on his plate and clears his throat. “Welcome to PFLAG. We’ll start with introductions as always. I’m Kurt, I’m a senior, and I’m gay.” He inclines his head towards Puck, and starts eating again.

“Puck. Senior.”

They keep on going around the room, but Finn doesn’t pay much attention to the other introductions for once, looking at Kurt out of the corner of his eye. He does catch that Lauren and her AV crew are there again, that Karofsky is still gay (and Casey apparently approves), and that Brittany says something about invasive lionfish. Finally, the introductions come back around to Rachel, who doesn’t mention her gay dads or anything, just that she’s a straight ally. Finn says he’s Finn and he’s here because he _cares about people_ , but Kurt doesn’t even pay him any attention.

Kurt finished eating while the introductions continued, and now he’s fiddling with his computer, a projector, and the little white remote thing, the screen turned away from everyone and a piece of cardboard blocking the projector temporarily. Finn glowers at the projector, for no particular reason, just that he feels like glowering at something.

“After our previous discussion about ‘passing,’ I thought we could try a game of sorts.” Kurt moves the cardboard and the screen flares to life, reading ‘Gay or Straight?’ “I took the liberty of asking some of you for photographs and in some cases, bypassed you and asked your parents. All of these pictures are cropped to show the neck down, and none of them were taken within Lima city limits. Any questions?”

Rickenbacker raises his hand. “I thought we weren’t supposed to, you know, guess if somebody’s gay by looking at them.”

“That’s sort of the point,” Kurt says, looking amused. “We’re going to see how accurate you are, as a group.” He waves a spiral-bound notebook. “I know the answer and will keep track of how many are correct. I don’t anticipate anything higher than 75%, if that.”

When there are no other questions, Kurt clicks on the remote thing and the first picture pops up. The first picture is a dude from the neck down, in a pair of fitted grey pants, with a dark red shirt tucked into them. The background’s about as nondescript as possible, and Finn honestly has no clue if the dude is gay, straight, or even somebody he knows.

“Gay,” Sam calls out. “No straight guy would wear that color.”

“Really?” Karofsky shoots back. “I was going to say straight, because no gay guy would wear it.”

Even though Finn’s pretty set on not laughing, that makes him snort a little, and he shakes his head. “I dunno, I say he’s straight,” Finn says, finally, “because I think I’ve seen that shirt somewhere before.”

“Yeah, and you don’t know anyone that’s gay,” Santana points out.

Finn glares at her. “I know plenty of people who are gay, but I don’t think I remember that shirt on them, smart ass.”

“Anyone else have an opinion?” Kurt asks, seeming to be waiting for everyone to more or less agree, or at least have a majority. It seems like most of the people agree with Sam, though nobody else says anything about the shirt color, and Finn just rolls his eyes at them. Kurt makes a note and clicks to the next slide.

The next picture is cropped a little further down the chest, no neck at all, dude in a pair of black slacks, with a black shirt and silver tie. This time, Kurt doesn’t have to prompt, and someone—Finn can’t see who and doesn’t recognize the voice—calls out, “Oh, that guy is definitely gay!”

Finn squints at the picture a little bit more, while more people call out their guess, and Finn agrees with the group’s guess this time. Something about the picture makes him sure the guy in it is gay, though he can’t put his finger on _why_. He wonders if that’s supposed to make him feel guilty or not, but decides it might just mean he’s good at guessing games, so he calls out, “Yeah, I think gay, too.”

Kurt makes another note, saying nothing. He just clicks the clicker thing again, and the next picture is a guy in a pair of pressed khakis, an Oxford shirt, and a pair of really shiny brown dress shoes. Once again, something about the guy in the picture looks really familiar to Finn, but he can’t figure out why. The guy’s build doesn’t match anybody’s in the room, and Finn realizes he’s looking at the guy’s belt to see if it matches his shoes before he answers.

“Definitely gay!” Lauren calls out. Finn frowns. The belt and shoes definitely don’t match, but maybe that’s exactly what Kurt’s talking about with not basing guesses on what you think you should see. Still, he’s coming down firmly in the ‘straight’ camp on this one.

“I agree with Lauren,” Rachel announces from beside him, though, and there’s a general murmur of agreement.

Finn cuts a glance over to Rachel, and says, “Well, I think he’s straight, because his shoes and his belt don’t match, and I used to do the same thing until Kurt lectured me on it for, like, twenty minutes one day.” For some reason, Kurt seems to find this really funny, and he cracks the first real smile that Finn’s seen out of him all day. Whatever, Finn doesn’t know why Kurt seems so amused, but if it’s working for Kurt, Finn’ll roll with it.

Still smiling, Kurt clicks to the next picture, and this time the guy pictured is wearing jeans, a plain white T-shirt, a plaid flannel shirt, tucked into the jeans, and a pair of worn, but not falling apart, Cons. “Straight,” Mercedes declares before two seconds have passed.

“I think so, too,” Artie says.

Finn looks at the picture for a while, but there’s just nothing about it that gives anything away. “Yeah, I’ll go with straight, too,” he says, and with only one or two quiet disagreements, everybody else calls out ‘straight.’

The next picture makes everybody crack up. It’s a row of McKinley’s football players in away uniforms, from the waist down, cropped too low for the numbers on the back of the uniform to show. Finn guesses that the lineup of eight or nine butts probably contains two gay ones, but before he can answer, Karofsky calls out, “If I can tell by looking at a guy’s ass whether he’s gay or straight, doesn’t that say more about whether or not _I’m_ gay?”

“Just checking out what brand of jeans, right, Dave?” Santana hollers from across the room, and Karofsky grins and gives her the finger, which makes Casey giggle and the rest of the room roar with laughter.

“Whichever ass is Karofsky’s, so that’s one gay, seven straight, right?” Sam laughs.

“That one’s David,” Casey pipes up, pointing to the next to last butt in the line up. Karofsky cracks up.

“I wasn’t sure which one was me,” he admits.

“Oh, it’s definitely that one,” Casey says, nodding his head. “It’s the next–to–tallest one, see?”

“That makes the tallest one a straight ass,” Mike calls, pointing towards Finn.

“I think they’re all gay,” Brittany says.

“No, some of those we wouldn’t let be gay,” Kurt retorts.

“Aww, that’s sad.” Brittany frowns and Finn stares at her, then at Kurt, and then, just because he’s on a roll, at Casey for a minute, because seriously, that was impressive ass identification.

“I don’t know if that one’s gay or straight, but I think I like it,” Brown says, pointing to the middle butt in the row, and Rickenbacker snorts “dude” at him.

“Hands off,” Kurt mutters, and Finn can barely make out what Kurt’s saying. Kurt tosses a quick glare in Brown’s direction. Finn shakes his head; whatever’s going on with Kurt isn’t making him let up on poor ol’ Brown.

The next picture is also the first picture of a girl. She’s dressed in a blue knee-length dress, kind of flouncy, with a halter neck, and a pair of black heels. Finn looks at the picture extra closely, because, hey, those boobs could be familiar.

“Can I vote with Brown that I don’t care if she’s gay or straight, I like looking at her?” Artie asks.

“Way to objectify women,” Santana snaps, rolling her eyes.

“Why wasn’t it objectifying when Brown said that about the football butt?” Artie argues. “It’s the same thing.”

“No, it isn’t. When we’re post–patriarchy, it’ll be the same.”

“No fighting!” Brittany calls out. Kurt hurriedly asks for everyone’s opinion (most vote straight, though Finn disagrees again) and then goes through the remainder of the photographs before putting the piece of cardboard over the projector again.

“How well do you think you did, as a group?”

“I think I got 100%,” Finn says, proudly. “You guys suck, though.”

Kurt laughs. “At least you realized you yourself were straight.”

“Awesome!” Finn puts his hand up for a high five, forgetting until Kurt grimaces as he offers up his own palm that he’s supposed to be being really careful with Kurt. He touches his palm to Kurt’s very gently, which results in Kurt giving him a weird look.

“Not so fast,” Kurt cautions him. “You got _me_ wrong.”

“Yeah, well, that’s because you’re awesome, too,” Finn says, shaking his head, because that’s pretty obvious. “Which one were you, anyway? Not the girl in the halter top. Or a football butt?”

“Jeans and Cons.”

“Seriously?” Artie says. “I’m… will you be insulted if I say I’m impressed?” Finn doesn’t know if Kurt’s insulted, but Finn thinks he should be, so Finn glares at Artie.

“Yes, it takes talent to tie my shoes in the morning. That’s why I wear slip on shoes so often,” Kurt says, in that tone he usually reserves for when Finn says something that even Finn realizes is dumb.

“What was the overall score?” Puck speaks for the first time since the introductions, not even looking towards Artie.

“About two-thirds wrong, one-third correct.”

“Yeah, you guys said I was gay,” Mike calls out. “Straight guys can totally wear dark red, Sam!”

“Sorry, dude,” Sam says, a little sheepishly.

“I think the real question is, was Casey right about the butt,” Rickenbacker calls out, and Casey and Karofsky both laugh.

“Yes,” Kurt says simply, setting off more laughter.

“What about that guy all in black, with the silver tie?” Tina asks. “Is he really gay?”

“That’s what his boyfriend says.” Kurt has a tiny smile playing on his face, and that’s when Finn realizes that he thinks he knows who the guy in that picture is. Kurt looks almost relaxed, even and that makes Finn relax a little, too.

There are a few more comments, and then Kurt clears his throat. “So. I assume we all enjoyed that and learned a little something. On an unrelated note, a reminder that online, lists of gay–friendly physicians and other medical professionals can be found, since not all professionals stay professional.” A dark look passes across Kurt’s face, and Finn feels that little bit of relaxation from a moment ago evaporating. Gay–friendly physicians? He looks over at Rachel, to see if she’s thinking the same thing he is.

Her eyes are wide, looking at Finn with her lips turned down at the edges. Her lower lip is almost trembling. “Finn,” she whispers.

He gives her a stern look and puts his finger to his lip, shushing her, because the last thing Kurt needs, if he’s going to some kind of doctor right now, is Rachel crying all over him. Also, Finn’s got a nasty feeling that if Rachel starts to cry, it might set him off, too, and Kurt really doesn’t need Finn crying all over him.

“Thanks, Mike, for the food. We’ll see everyone in two weeks.”

Finn barely notices everyone else streaming out of the room. He puts his hand out blindly and Rachel grasps it in her own. Something is definitely going on with Kurt and it may be more serious that Finn even realized.

 

Finn is too worked up to concentrate for the rest of the day, and after school, he and Rachel head to the Lima Bean, where they pull up the WebMd app on Finn’s phone and put in every combination of symptoms they’re sure they’ve observed in Kurt over the last week or two. Rachel pulls out a small notebook with pink pages, and writes down the name of each medical condition the app suggests and why they think he could or couldn’t have them.

“Oh God, Rach, it could be… en–do–me–triosis? That sounds really horrible!”

“Endometriosis?” Rachel stares at Finn dumbfounded. “Kurt’s not a _girl_ , Finn!” She shakes her head. “You really did tell Noah your mom had to have an operation on her prostate, didn’t you?”

“I was _improvving_ ,” Finn insists. “It’s _hard_ , ok?”

Rachel giggles for just a second, but doesn’t write anything down.

“Shit, you don’t think it could be _Kurt’s_ prostate, do you?” Finn knows he’s grasping at straws, but honestly, prostate doesn’t sound as bad as some of the stuff they have on the list.

“I think that’s highly unlikely,” Rachel frowns, “but check what the app says.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like it’s cancer,” Finn says, scrolling through the app, “because I don’t think he’s having trouble with his pee. Oh, we should ask Puck about whether Kurt’s having trouble with his pee!” He nods his head a little at his own words, and scrolls down some more. “No, apparently all the prostate stuff involves pain when you pee, so unless Kurt’s doing all his peeing away from home, I think he’s ok, ‘cause I haven’t heard any yelling from the bathroom or anything.”

“Well, that’s good.” Rachel sighs with relief. “We have eight strong contenders.”

“We should split the list up, and each look up four of them when we get home,” Finn suggests. “You know, for more detail or something. Oh, we should also, like, _observe_ Kurt, and see how he matches up with our notes!”

“Good idea!” Rachel’s notes take up four pages, and she hands two of them to Finn. “You take these four and I’ll take the other four.” She bites her lip fretfully. “Poor Kurt. Poor Noah, too.”

Finn drives Rachel home, and tonight, he doesn’t kiss all over her. Neither one of them is in the mood. She gives him a long, chaste hug, before hopping out of the truck and hurrying into the house, probably to start looking up her four medical conditions.

Kurt’s Nav is in the driveway when Finn gets home, but the house is quiet. Finn wanders into the kitchen and freezes. Two mostly–empty bowls are sitting on the table, the last bits of ice cream melting inside them, but it’s Puck and Kurt that make Finn freeze and try to slowly back out of the kitchen.

Puck’s back is pressed against the wall, one of his arms wrapped around Kurt’s waist and the other twined in Kurt’s hair. Kurt has one leg slid in between Puck’s, and one hand along Puck’s jaw, and Finn thinks Kurt doesn’t look even remotely sick at the moment. He hopes that’s a good sign, but he still scoots quickly out of the kitchen and up to his room, where he starts Googling the four conditions on his list.

 

When Finn wakes up on Wednesday, the first thing he thinks about isn’t Kurt — it’s that it’s Signing Day, and that’s a huge deal, and it means he’s really, really going to college. The second thing he thinks about is Kurt, and that deflates Finn’s happiness a little bit, but he’s been able to rule out a few of the illnesses on his assigned list, so he’s feeling a little bit more upbeat.

Maybe he and Rachel are overreacting. Maybe it’s not something chronic or terminal. Kurt isn’t turning yellow or anything, so it’s probably not his liver, and he doesn’t think Kurt is losing weight. These are all positive signs, signs that Finn can relax a little for just _one_ day. Finn and Kurt cross paths briefly before Kurt leaves the house, and once again, he’s dressed in neutrals, browns today. Finn wonders if maybe Kurt’s actually suffering from crippling depression over, like, late onset colorblindedness or something.

On the drive in to school, Finn decides that what he and Rachel really need to distract themselves is to get the ball rolling on choreography for the new duet. As soon as Finn parks, he pulls out his phone and shoots Mike a text.

 _new duet, meet me & R in auditorium @4th_

 _ok! 4 natl?_

 _thats the plan man!_

 _awesome c u then_

Finn heads to Rachel’s locker, where she’s waiting with a worried look on her face. Finn leans over and kisses her on the forehead. She pulls out her pink notebook, and launches into what she’s come up with in her research.

“I luckily was able to rule out lupus, thyroid cancer, and Graves’ disease. We simply don’t know enough about—”

“Rach,” Finn interrupts. “Not in the hall, ok? We’ll compare notes at lunch.” He lowers his voice. “I ruled out a couple, too, but…”

“Oh, right, right!” She lowers her voice also. “Do you know if there is oral–anal contact?” she hisses.

“ _Jesus_ , Rachel!” Finn yelps. “First of all, I don’t _wanna_ know that, and second, geez, not in the hall!”

“It’s a risk factor!” Rachel protests, falling into step beside Finn. “Can I ask Noah?”

“No!” Finn gives Rachel the _look_ , the one they seem to have agreed means ‘knock it off, will ya’ and which she’s pretty good about listening to.

Rachel huffs and almost pouts a little, like she really did want the answer to that question, which makes Finn wonder why the hell she could ever need to know something like that, because, just… _no_! “We’ll talk during fourth period?”

“Not about _that_ , but anyway, no, we’re meeting Mike in the auditorium to start working on choreography for the new duet,” Finn says, and is _that_ ever a relief. “We’ll compare our notes at lunch and no, not notes on… on… _that thing you said_!”

“All right,” Rachel concedes. “Choreography should be fun!” She stands on tiptoe to kiss Finn’s cheek before waving and trotting off down the hall to her first class, which might be math, or it might be science, or it could even be Spanish.

Finn heads to history, unable to shake the newly forming idea of what on earth Rachel could possibly mean by oral–anal contact, and _oh god_ , now he’s figured it out, and _now_ he’s got a mental picture. _Oh god_ , and now he’s picturing Puck and Kurt, and, oh holy hell, no. They don’t make a bleach strong enough to get that image out of Finn’s head. Maybe therapy. Intensive therapy.

He tries to think about anything else, including Rachel’s boobs and a cute video he saw of a baby panda sneezing and freaking the hell out of its mom, but as Finn walks into history and catches Puck’s eye, he can’t help but make a weird face that gives way to a coughing fit. Puck looks at him all confused, but Finn can’t figure out a way to actually talk to Puck without the mental picture popping back into his head.

“Everything okay dude?” Puck looks almost concerned, staring at Finn as Finn sits down.

Finn shakes his head in response, more to indicate that he can’t talk than that something’s actually wrong. He waves a little at Puck to let him know everything’s fine. Puck looks at him skeptically but doesn’t press the matter, and luckily, their teacher starts talking right then, and Finn has an excuse to not look back over at Puck.

When the bell rings, Finn is out the door before Puck has a chance to question him, leaving Puck probably staring after him, still confused.

 

After the scene in history class, Finn’s even happier that he, Rachel, and Mike are going to be in the auditorium instead of the choir room. He meets up with Rachel outside, and Mike is already there, sitting on the edge of the stage and swinging his legs.

“So, who’s up for some brand new choreographing?” Finn says, pulling out the music Puck and Kurt gave them on Sunday.

“What do we have?” Mike asks cheerfully, standing up. “Anything I might know?”

“Only if you’re psychic or can see into the future,” Finn answers, grinning. “Wait, you can’t do that, right? Everybody seems kind of randomly like mind readers lately.” He rifles through his bag for the CD.

“No latent mind–reading powers.” Mike shakes his head. “Why?”

“Rach, do you want to run through it for him?” Finn walks back into the wings and finds the stereo stashed there.

“I think that’d be easiest, yes,” Rachel agrees, nodding. “Oh, Mike, it’s _so_ good!”

“What _is_ it?” Mike asks again, laughing a little.

Finn just grins at Mike again. “You’ll see.” He presses play on the stereo and after the short instrumental intro, he and Rachel launch into a still–unpolished version of their new song.

“Wow.” Mike looks at them a little dumb-struck when they’re finished. “Where’d that come from?”

“Puck and Kurt,” Finn says. “They, uh, sometimes work on music together, you know.”

Mike snorts. “That’s an interesting term for it. But, okay, that makes sense.”

Finn stares at Mike. “Wait a minute. Do you…?”

“I do a lot of things.” Mike grins. “But the answer is yes.”

“They never tell me things,” Finn sighs, shaking his head. “How am I supposed to keep all of this straight when they don’t _tell me_ things?”

“It was just last week,” Rachel says soothingly. “We were at Rinky Dinks, and—”

“Those guys are, like, obsessed with Rinky Dinks,” Finn says, and he’s not even sure why he’s suddenly feeling so grumpy.

“Anyway, I’m sure they just got distracted by other things,” Rachel hurries to keep talking. “I’m sure they meant to tell you, Finn.”

Finn’s face falls from grumpy into worried. “Oh, yeah, I guess they probably are distracted.”

“Yeah, Tina was trying to tell me something about Kurt…?” Mike trails off and shakes his head. “But we should choreograph! Okay. Did you have any thoughts, either of you?”

“Nah,” Finn says, shaking his head without much energy. “Not really. You can just be the dancing boss of us.”

“Excellent!” The grin on Mike’s face is just this side of maniacal, which might mean that Finn and Rachel should be worried.

Mike demonstrates and then walks them through a series of combinations of moves, each of them taking about ten to twenty-five seconds. It’s not too hard for Finn to follow the steps when they’re broken down into such small pieces, and even Mike looks impressed when Finn nails one of the more complicated ones on the third try. Mike eventually combines all the combinations into one longer sequence, which turns out to go pretty perfectly along with the chorus.

“Okay, so, work on that when you sing the chorus, and next time we’ll work on the verses.” Mike pauses to take a long drink of water. “When do you want to meet again? I know we have the dance on Saturday night and rehearsal Sunday evening, but most of my weekend is free other than that.”

“I wouldn’t mind sneaking in here during fourth period on Wednesdays,” Finn suggests. “It worked out pretty sweet, I think.”

“All right, we can do that,” Mike concedes. “Oh, crap, was that the bell?” He grabs his bag and grins at them. “Gotta get to class. Have fun this afternoon, Finn!”

“Thank, Mike!” Finn calls after Mike’s disappearing form. He turns to Rachel, “So, lunch and we can go over our notes? Figure this thing out?”

Rachel nods. “Yes, let’s. You were able to rule some things out?”

They grab their lunch trays and find a table. “Well, I don’t think it’s hepatitis B, because his eyes aren’t yellow,” Finn begins.

“Right. And it’s not Graves’ disease, because Kurt hasn’t lost any weight.” She pauses, almost embarrassed. “If anything, he’s _gained_ a little weight.”

“Yeah, but some of this stuff, they treat it with steroids, right?” Finn counters. “It could be steroid weight. Or, like, steroid muscles or whatever.”

“That’s true,” Rachel admits. “It’s not like he’s getting pudgy, it’s just more bulk. Muscles. Yes.”

“See? Steroids. A couple of mine get treated with steroids,” Finn says, holding out his list to show where he’s written ‘steroids,’ along with a list of other possible symptoms and treatments, next to two of the illnesses.

“Oh! Finn! What if it’s not an illness at all, but an _addiction_?” Rachel’s eyes are wide. “Noah admitted to me once that he used steroids! And so many gay men have body image issues, I’ve heard my dads talk about it all the time!”

Finn snorts. “He fed you the steroid line, too? Please, Rach, that’s just some of the shit he used to come up with when he was trying to impress girls. I don’t know why he thought that would be impressive, but, I mean, I guess I kind of understand it a little better now.”

“But that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be Kurt’s issue!” Rachel presses. “What are signs of steroid abuse?”

“I dunno,” Finn says. “I’ll put it on the list and look it up after Signing Day stuff, ok? Oh, and depression. And colorblindedness.”

“Colorblindness? Well, okay. But I also eliminated lupus.”

“I could have told you he wasn’t a werewolf, Rachel,” Finn scoffs. “I don’t even know why you put it on the list.”

“Not lycanthropy! Lupus. It’s an autoimmune disorder that primarily affects women, so it was a long shot, but some of the things we’ve observed are consistent with autoimmune issues, so.”

“Yeah, that’s kinda what I’m afraid of, too. Immune stuff,” Finn says, with a sigh. “Look.” He slides the list over to Rachel, who frowns. “I don’t know _how_ he would, I mean, but, still…”

There’s a harsh intake of breath. “But _Finn_ …”

“I know, I know,” Finn says, taking Rachel’s hand. “That’s probably a long shot, too, though. I mean, he gives _me_ the lecture on that stuff.” Finn frowns. “But, he did say…” He shakes his head. “But Puck would have to be, you know, too.”

“He said what?” Rachel looks fearful again. “And you know that two people could, well. Not present the same.”

“No, they get tested, like, every six months,” Finn says. “I’m sure it’s, I mean, everything is fine.”

Rachel keeps frowning but nods slowly. “Okay.”

“They’re safe and responsible,” Finn says, definitively. “It’s gotta be something else. Lemme look at your list again.”

They spend the rest of lunch poring over the two lists, but don’t make any significant headway. In fact, by the end of lunch, they’ve added several possible medical conditions, two more potential addictions, and, at Finn’s insistence, ‘bitten by rabid bats’ to the list.

 

The rest of the day is decidedly less exciting, because after lunch, Finn starts to get himself all worked up about Signing Day, and he keeps texting Rachel to assure him that the shirt he’s wearing looks fine, and that he’s not going to miss his head when he goes to put the hat on.

After the last class lets out, he meets Sam and Karofsky at Coach’s office, and they walk together out to the stadium, where Coach has a room set up for them to do their big dramatic signing thingy. Sam and Karofsky seem to be doing the same thing as Finn, making worried faces and sending off frantic texts, which makes Finn feel a little bit better about himself. The signing itself isn’t a big deal, but the _idea_ of it feels pretty huge.

There’s a tiny man with a red bowler hat standing with Coach Beiste when they arrive, and it actually takes Coach a minute to stop talking to (and smiling at) the man, who Coach introduces to them.

“Oh, boys!” Coach smiles at them. “Monty, here they are, Sam, Finn, and Dave,” she gestures to each of them in term. “Boys, Monty Desmond.”

“Oh, hey, aren’t you the guy with the Trojammers?” Sam asks as he shakes Mr. Desmond’s hand.

“You remember me!” Mr. Desmond exclaims, turning to Coach Beiste. “Shannon, he remembers me, that’s so exciting!”

“Oh, yeah,” Finn says. “You were at Invitationals. I remember the hat. My brother would totally kill for that hat, by the way.” He puts his hand out and lets Mr. Desmond shake it enthusiastically.

“Definitely,” Sam laughs. “Finn’s brother would love it. Even if he’s been a little toned down lately.”

Finn frowns at Sam having noticed, but then he gets caught up in Coach’s enthusiastic rushing of them to their places, and explaining exactly what they’re all supposed to do.

“So David, you’ll go first, and then Finn, and finally you, Sam.” She grins. “That’s east to west on the colleges, in case you were wondering. There’s a working pen for each of you, hats are to your left, smile big!”

As Karofsky sits down at the table, his phone bings, and he grins and rolls his eyes in a weirdly fond kind of way, before signing his paper and putting the GT cap on his head with a big, toothy smile for the camera. Finn sits down next, concentrating hard on not making one of those goofy weird faces people keep telling him he makes, and when he plunks his Wisconsin hat on his head, he also has to resist the urge to give the camera a thumbs-up. Sam follows suit, only without the text, substituting an LSU hat, and, well, all of Sam’s smiles are kind of extra toothy and a little goofy.

Coach Beiste claps enthusiastically when they’re all finished and the cameras are turned off, Mr. Desmond almost jumping in place beside her. “Congratulations, boys!” She pulls out a gift bag for each of them and hands them off, shaking their hands. “How do you feel?”

“Relieved!” Karofsky answers, and they all laugh. There’s a little more chit-chat before Sam announces he has to leave, because he promised Stevie and Stacey he’d come over to pick them up this once, wearing ‘his new hat,’ and Karofsky makes his excuses soon, too. Coach and Mr. Desmond seem to have drifted off into their own private conversation, so Finn waves in their direction and heads out to his truck, texting Rachel on the way to let her know that he didn’t make an idiot of himself on camera. Nearly, but not quite.

 

When Finn arrives home, Kurt’s car isn’t in the driveway, and Finn starts to freak out for a minute before he realizes that it’s Wednesday and Kurt works on Wednesday afternoons. He slings his backpack over his shoulder and unlocks the front door. As he heads towards the kitchen for a snack—seriously, they couldn’t have had Signing Day food?—he pauses, hearing voices from the kitchen.

Finn quietly sets down his bag and looks around for something to use as a weapon. He finally settles on the umbrella basket. He picks it up in one hand, hefting it over his head, and sidles up to the door of the kitchen, staying out of sight, ready to defend himself against, whatever, kitchen bandits or whoever might be in there.

“…said, I just… would… devastated,” Finn can make out just a few words, in what sounds like his mom’s voice. Feeling a little stupid, he sets down the basket and scootches closer to the door.

“…to break the news to Kurt,” Burt answers. “I mean, this… end his world.” Finn can only catch most of what Burt is saying, but it’s enough to make Finn’s heart start to pound and everything feel cold. They were _right_! Something is wrong with Kurt, something that’s devastated Finn’s mom, something that is going to end Kurt’s world. This isn’t some minor thing. It’s probably not even a rabid bat bite and it’s definitely not something like steroids. This is huge and horrible, whatever it is.

Finn creeps quietly upstairs, because he just can’t talk to his parents right now, and have them try to pretend like everything’s ok when Finn knows it isn’t, and may not ever be again. As soon as he’s in his bedroom, he pulls out his phone and texts Rachel.

 _Worse than we thought. Parents know. BAD!!!_

 _What is it? :(((_

 _Dunno deets but mom is devastated_

 _ok. Talk tomorrow?_

 _tomorrow <3_

There’s a tap on Finn’s door, and Burt pushes the door open. He and Finn’s mom both have strange looks on their faces, but on top of them, they’ve plastered on big smiles, for Finn’s benefit, he guesses.

“Hey, guys,” Finn forces himself to be all upbeat. “What’s up?”

“You tell us,” Burt says, grinning. “Signing Day, how’d it go?”

Finn holds up his hat. “I’m an official Badger.”

“I’m so proud of you, sweetie!” Carole sniffles a little and Finn is alarmed to see tears pooling in her eyes. “Look at you, all ready for college! And that hat! It looks like it’s perfectly sized for you!”

“It’s adjustable, mom,” Finn says, turning the hat around, and it sets her off into a new round of sniffles.

“This is just so exciting,” Carole continues, gushing. “You know we got you a magnet for your truck!”

“I just might have already snuck out there and stuck it on,” Burt confesses, and Finn doesn’t understand how Burt is acting so _normal_ when Finn’s mom is standing right there crying over hats.

“That’s awesome,” Finn says, because if they’re going to act like nothing’s going on, he can do the same thing. “Thanks, Burt, mom.”

“You’re welcome, sweetie.” Carole beams at him. “We’ll let you get back to your homework, and Burt just came home to get a spare shirt, he’s got to head back to the shop. Pork chops for dinner!”

“See you later, Finn,” Burt says, pulling the door closed behind him. “We’re proud of you.”

Finn glares at the closed door. Sure Burt’s proud of Finn, even though Burt is a big lying secret keeper. Still, Finn doesn’t want to upset his mom even more, not when she’s already so _fragile_ , so he gets his homework out and actually attempts to work on it, doing his best to ignore the folded piece of pink paper with a list of things that could be horribly wrong with his only brother.

 

Finn hears footsteps on the stairs and tries to avoid leaping up and running to the door to confront Kurt about whatever world–ending, devastating thing is wrong with him. Instead, Finn nonchalantly pulls his door open and pokes his head out.

“Hey, Kurt.”

“Oh, hi,” Kurt startles a little. “Oh, how’d the signing thing go? All the ‘i’s dotted?”

“Uh, yeah, it went great. Got a hat.”

“Oh, good. Free hats are nice.” Kurt looks distracted and keeps slowly edging down the hall. “Listen, I’m going to go change clothes, so—”

“Are you going out or something?” Finn asks, looking at Kurt suspiciously. “Mom’s making pork chops.”

“Oh, _good_ ,” Kurt says, looking weirdly relieved. “I saw her cutting up some vegetables too. But no, I’m just going to go for a run.”

Finn knows his mouth has dropped open, but he just can’t even be bothered to do anything about it. “A run? Since when do you run?”

“Admittedly I’ve been rather slack since September, but I ran most days in the summer,” Kurt points out. “And I swear my brown pants are feeling tighter.”

Finn frowns so hard his eyebrows practically touch each other. “Mmhmm. Well, don’t miss dinner.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kurt assures him almost breezily, continuing down the hall a little more quickly now. “We haven’t had pork chops in awhile, after all.”

When Kurt disappears into his room, Finn allows his shoulders to slump. Everybody is acting so weird, and Finn just can’t see anything obviously wrong with Kurt. It doesn’t make any sense. Maybe Finn is just slowly losing his mind, though that would mean that his mom and Burt and Rachel are all losing their minds, too, which could be possible, but doesn’t seem likely.

 

The next morning, Kurt appears in the kitchen before school looking a little more like his old self. He’s still just wearing jeans, but at least they’re tight, and a fancy looking shirt and blazer and oh, even a _scarf_ and a _hat_. He looks more Kurt–like than he has all week, but at this point, Finn is feeling so suspicious that he wonders if it’s a trick to throw him off the trail of Kurt’s impending horrible death or something. Kurt pulls out two oranges from the refrigerator and then picks up his bag, turning to face Finn after that. “See you at school.”

“Sure!” Finn says, with as much gusto as he can manage, making a mental note to ask Rachel what vitamin it is that oranges have. He’s pretty sure it’s C and they should look up ‘diseases you treat with lots of vitamin C’ or ‘what happens if you don’t get enough vitamin C’ or something like that.

When Finn gets to school, he goes straight to Rachel’s locker, and before she can even speak to him, he starts talking. “She said she’s distraught, Rachel. I heard her! And Burt, he was saying something about how this was going to end Kurt’s world! And Kurt, he took _two oranges_ out of the fridge today! And he _ran_ last night!”

Rachel’s face goes from horrified to really sad to confused, all as Finn’s talking. “I… I know! He must be trying natural healing methods, instead of Western medicine! Or what if he’s already exhausted the options of traditional medicine?”

“But, already? Isn’t that quick?” Finn feels panicked, like he should run through the halls and find Kurt as soon as possible, and, he doesn’t know what. Drag him to Dr. House and find out if it’s that thing with the copper. “Could it be that thing with the copper?” Finn says out loud.

“Ooh, like on that episode of _House_!” Rachel shakes her head, looking bewildered. “I don’t know!” She sighs. “I don’t know, Finn. If no one says anything by Sunday, I think we should start rehearsal with an ill–tervention. That’s an illness intervention. We should sit Kurt down and tell him what we know, and that we all just love him and want to support him, but we can’t help unless we know the official diagnosis.”

“You don’t think that’ll upset him? You know how private he is,” Finn says. “I mean, I want to know, but I also don’t want to get him so upset that it makes whatever’s wrong with him _worse_.”

“It’ll help him in the long run,” Rachel insists. “Talk to Noah in history. Also Sam and Brittany, I suppose, though maybe wait to talk to Brittany. Just Noah today.”

“Yeah, we’ll wait on Britt. She’ll probably cry.”

“Yes, or get terribly confused. All right.” Rachel brandishes her pink notebook. “I’ll start on the plans immediately. Talk to Noah and I’ll talk to Mercedes and Tina. See you during fourth period!”

“Thanks, Rach,” Finn says, wrapping his arms around her briefly. “You’re the best, you know that?”

“Oh, Finn,” Rachel sniffs and smiles up at him. “Love you!”

“I love you, too,” Finn answers. It’s been the easiest and truest thing he’s said all week. He strides towards history with a purpose. He _is_ getting answers out of Puck.

Finn flings himself down into his seat next to Puck, who is sprawled out in his own chair, eating an orange, and demands, “I know you know what’s going on, so don’t try to talk around it. I have a right to know what’s going on!”

“You do?” Puck raises an eyebrow, taking a bite of his orange and chewing it very slowly. Probably that slow on purpose. “I don’t know anything,” he adds, but not really that convincingly.

Finn narrows his eyes at Puck. “I know he’s keeping it a secret, but I know that he wouldn’t keep it from you, so start talking, Puck.”

“No.” It’s a flat refusal, and Puck straightens in his chair a little. “You don’t get to decide when he shares something.”

“I can’t believe all of you!” Finn blurts out, right as the teacher walks into class. “It’s like a conspiracy to keep me from knowing what’s going on!”

“Volume, Mr. Hudson,” their teacher snaps from the front of the classroom, and Finn slides down into his seat with his arms crossed and an evil glare on his face. When he cuts his eye back over at Puck, Puck’s mouthing ‘all of us?’ with a slightly puzzled look on his face.

Well, that does it, right there. Finn’s not stopping until he gets some answers, and he doesn’t care if he has to steal Kurt’s phone and call back all the recent numbers, or any of the other stuff that PIs do on television; he is going to find out what’s wrong with his brother.

When class is over, Puck gives Finn one last look, clearly saying that Puck thinks Finn’s lost it, and then scoots out the door before Finn can catch him. On the way to his next class, Finn finds himself cornered—well, as much as someone that size can corner anybody—by Casey, who peers up at Finn with a worried expression on his face.

“Is, um, is Kurt? Is he ok?” Casey asks. “I heard. Some stuff.”

Finn shakes his head. “To be honest with you Casey, I have no clue. Nobody seems to think they need to tell me anything. What did _you_ hear?”

“Someone in my first period class said he might have to get some kind of, um, transplant!” Casey’s voice breaks on the last word, he’s so distressed. “I hope that’s not true!”

“When I figure that out, I’ll let you know, ok?” Finn promises, and Casey looks a little relieved as he waves goodbye and zips down the hallway. Finn shakes his head as Casey disappears, because it sucks that even the sophomores know more about what’s going on with Kurt than he does. A transplant? Of what?

When Finn arrives at the choir room during fourth period, Mercedes snags his arm. “Is it true?” she hisses. “Is he having to go up there because Lima doesn’t have the right people, or is just some idiot refusing to treat him here?”

“Why, what did you hear?” Finn asks, remembering Tuesday and Kurt’s little comment about gay–friendly doctors.

“Kurt was talking on the phone this morning about a clinic in Toledo, and how it was a drive but it was worth it if it helped. Something about a quack.”

“I wonder if that’s where they’re doing the transplant,” Finn muses. “I don’t know what quack or what clinic, though. Nobody’s telling me _anything_ , Mercedes. I mean, my mom was crying all over the place yesterday, and then she and Burt were just acting like everything was awesome and cool, when it’s not. I mean, _obviously_!”

“Transplant!” Mercedes squawks, then slaps her hand over her mouth. “What kind of transplant?” she asks, lowering her voice.

“I don’t even know! I heard about it from Casey from PFLAG. Even _sophomores_ know more about what’s going on than I do!” Finn fumes. “I haven’t heard anything directly from— oh shit.” He cuts himself off as Puck walks through the door with Rachel.

Puck looks put out, if not angry, and for once, Rachel does not have her hand tucked up in the crook of Puck’s elbow. Rachel is almost pouting up at Puck, who is stubbornly ignoring that fact. Rachel catches Finn’s eye, and he shrugs a little ‘what?’ gesture at her, to which she just shakes her head rapidly.

Kurt walks in the room just a few steps behind the two of them, and everyone falls silent for a beat too long. Mercedes is the first to recover.

“Oh, Kurt! I love that hat and scarf with that shirt, boo! Where’d you find the hat?”

“Oh, I’ve had it for years,” Kurt says dismissively.

“The blues look so good on you,” Tina pipes up. “Such good color in your cheeks.”

Kurt narrows his eyes a little as most of the rest of the room nods vigorously at Tina’s words. Finn casts a glare around the room, because if they don’t settle down, he’s never getting any answers. They mostly ignore him, continuing to stare at Kurt.

“If you get a robot heart, will there still be enough room in there for love?” Brittany asks, seemingly out of the blue, though who knows with Brittany how she comes up with any of that stuff. Maybe she heard something, and Finn realizes they never really did look seriously at heart conditions.

“It’s amazing what they do with bionic parts these days,” Kurt answers her, nodding, but his eyes still look utterly confused.

“Oh, that’s good,” Brittany says. “That would be sad.”

 

The rest of Finn’s day passes in a sort of a blur. Kurt is sick. Kurt is probably _really_ sick. Kurt might be going to some special clinic in Toledo for some kind of heart transplant, and _nobody will tell Finn anything_!

He bumbles through his remaining classes, actually getting so lost in thought during Spanish class that Mr. Schue has to come over and tap on his shoulder when the bell rings.

“You doing okay, Finn?” Mr. Schue asks him, but Finn can only give a weak smile in response, because no. He’s really not doing okay. He’s worried and sad and also, feels horribly, horribly guilty for all the times he’s talked about boobs or accused Kurt of abandoning him to go to New York. If Finn had only known that something was going on with Kurt, he would have spent more time just doing the things Kurt liked to do. He might even have let Kurt keep going on about his… well, ok, even sympathy probably wouldn’t make Finn able to listen to details about Kurt and Puck’s sex life without flailing and making weird noises, but still. Finn would have _tried_ harder, at least.

Finn rushes from A&P to the choir room after the last bell rings, putting him there before everyone else, which pretty much never happens. He texts Rachel to let her know he’s already there, and then he sits quietly in a seat that’s not his normal one, a little off to the side where he can watch people coming in without them noticing him right away. Finn notices Puck’s stuff is already at his normal seat, but Puck is nowhere to be seen. Probably helping Kurt to class or something, since _Puck_ at least knows what’s going on.

Puck wanders back in and walks over to his stuff, sliding something into his bag like he’s in a real hurry. He doesn’t seem to notice Finn sitting over near where the jazz band usually goes, but Finn notices Puck and cranes his neck to see what Puck is hiding, unsuccessfully. Puck turns around and jumps. “Geez, dude!”

“Yeah, I’m here,” Finn says, a little sullenly. “I’ve been here the whole time.”

“Riight. The whole time.”

“You didn’t notice? You must have been distracted by something.”

Puck tilts his head and purses his lips. “So what was I doing before I left a few minutes ago?”

“ _Sneaking_ , probably,” Finn says. “That’s just apparently what people do around here these days.”

“You know, not everything is about what you think it is. Or any of your business, _at all_.”

“Well, nobody seems to think anything is my business, so how the hell am I supposed to know!” Finn snaps, but before he or Puck can say anything else, the rest of the club starts streaming in, so Finn presses his mouth shut and sits in the jazz band chair until Rachel comes in, giving him a strange look. She sits down beside Finn and pats his arm but doesn’t say anything, either.

Mr. Schue looks pretty upbeat when he walks into the choir room, so obviously _he_ hasn't heard the rumors that they could be down a member at any time. "All right, guys! Does anyone have a number they'd like to present as a possible contender for Regionals?"

"We do, actually," Sam volunteers, gesturing to Artie. "It's from Snow Patrol."

"All right, fantastic." Schue nods a little and gestures the two of them forward.

 _It's like we just can't help ourselves  
'Cause we don't know how to back down  
We were called out to the streets  
We were called in to the towns_

Finn scowls at Sam and Artie. Who can sing Snow Patrol at a time like this?

 _We are listening  
And we're not blind  
This is your life  
This is your time_

"That's a pretty different song for us, but with some rearrangement, it might work," Mr. Schue says, obviously considering the issue. "Let's think about it!"

"We have something!" Tina announces, and her broad gesture seems to take in Mike, Brittany, herself, and Santana. They proceed to do a stripped–down version of "Tubthumping," with just Mike and Brittany doing the choreography.

"Oh, wow, guys, that was great," Mr. Schue comments, but he's clearly influenced by the over–enthusiastic response from the rest of the group. Finn spares a glance behind him to see that Kurt and Puck are joining in, and it only confirms Finn’s growing sense of dread. They're practically leaning on each other, not even caring who sees them. It must be bad, if they’re throwing caution to the wind like that.

"A definite contender," Mr. Schue concludes, Finn having missed the rest of the speech, and then he looks surprised when Puck stands up and goes to the front. Finn wonders what kind of song Puck could have to sing, if it’s going to give away any clues.

 _A warning to the people,  
The good and the evil,  
This is war._

Is that a clue? Who is Puck at war with? Is Kurt fighting a war? Maybe a war with his mysterious illness?

 _It's the moment of truth, and the moment to lie,  
The moment to live and the moment to die,  
The moment to fight, the moment to fight  
To fight, to fight, to fight!_

Finn does spare a moment to acknowledge that it would actually be a pretty kickass song for Nationals… if he even goes to Nationals, instead of, like, a funeral or visiting some kind of home for people recovering from illness or slowly dying or whatever.

"Definitely a different choice, Puck," Mr. Schue says, "but I can see why you chose it. I think." Schue looks around. "Let's save anything further for tomorrow. Any last minute updates on the dance?"

"Ticket sales are going great," Santana says smugly. "The best thing about the 'Bad Romance' thing is we're getting a lot of singles… and we make more money off them."

"The list of songs that everyone is performing is posted on the bulletin board," Rachel adds. "It's selected songs that have already been performed this year, as well as a few new ones where people volunteered!" She beams, clearly forgetting everything else for just a few moments. "Remember, we need everyone here by 6, unless you're on the committee, we'll be here earlier."

"Great, thanks, you two. All right, guys, see you tomorrow!" Mr. Schue turns to the piano and starts discussing something with Brad.

Finn glances at Kurt and Puck, who walk out together, talking about something. Finn can make out a few words, but not whole sentences.

"Just… here, and then… late for… up."

"Yeah… deal with questions… everyone is crazy."

Puck looks up and notices Finn watching them, then rolls his eyes. He turns back to Kurt and this time, whatever he says is so quiet that Finn can't hear any of it. When they leave the choir room, though, they head in the opposite direction of the parking lot, which doesn't make any sense.

 

Finn beats Kurt home and then paces his room for a while, waiting for Kurt and Puck to show up. When they do finally arrive, they’re in Kurt’s room with the door shut before Finn has a chance to corner them. When Finn’s mom and Burt arrive home, Kurt and Puck disappear back downstairs. It’s like they’re _trying_ to avoid Finn, which, they probably are, if they’re still so invested on making sure Finn doesn’t know what’s going on.

Or maybe it’s because they knew Burt picked up takeout, as Finn learns shortly after, when someone hollers up to Finn to come down and eat. Puck and Kurt eat their curries quickly and without engaging in conversation, not that there’s much conversation to be had, since Finn’s mom must be drowning her sorrows in food, with the amount of pad thai she consumes.

As soon as dinner is over, Kurt and Puck are out the door like someone lit their butts on fire, something Finn might consider doing if someone doesn’t start giving him some information. On the one hand, it’s hard to be mad at Kurt, because he probably has all these, like, emotions and stuff about being sick. And Puck probably does, too. On the other hand, they could still _tell_ Finn that something’s going on, instead of keeping up this weird front and then falling apart every time Finn turns his back.

Finn isn’t sure whether the correct response is to stew or to fret, so instead, he paces his room for a little while until he settles on fretting. Where are Puck and Kurt? What are they doing? Did Kurt bring a warm enough jacket? Does he have a hat? Should someone with his condition be out doing… whatever it is he’s out doing? Most physical stuff is probably bad for Kurt’s heart, if it is his heart, and the more Finn thinks about it, he bets it _is_ Kurt’s heart, because Burt had heart problems, too, and Finn has heard those run in the family.

He texts Rachel and asks her to watch out for Kurt, because he thinks it’s one of their nights where she and Puck and Kurt and Mike and Brittany get together and do stuff. Rachel doesn’t text back right away, though, and Finn ends up going back downstairs and drowning his worry in a long session of _Call of Duty_. When he happens to glance at the _Motorsport 4_ case, it’s all he can do to keep from tearing up.

Finn’s mom looks at him strangely when he says he’s going to bed early, but he just doesn’t have the energy to wait up and ask Kurt any questions tonight. The more Finn thinks about a future without his brother, the sadder he gets, and since Kurt won’t tell him anything anyway, Finn figures he can at least have tonight to wallow in some self-pity. He’ll pry some answers out of Kurt tomorrow.

 

Kurt is gone in the morning when Finn gets up for school, and Kurt and Puck don’t even show up at their regular Friday morning Starbucks meetup with the rest of glee. Tina and Mercedes send texts to Puck and Kurt asking where they are, then Tina shares the texted reply from Puck, that he’s tired of being at his work, and Mercedes reads off Kurt’s unrelated reply of “see you at school.” None of them heads towards school with a light or happy heart.

Finn’s day is a rush of overheard whispers and weird looks, and he alternately feels like he’s going crazy and that he’s involved in the biggest conspiracy that Lima has ever seen. By the time he makes it to glee, even if it means more direct conflict, he’s almost relieved. Anything would be better than the constant state of worry that even Finn can admit is starting to border on paranoid. Puck looks like he’s definitely up to something when he enters the choir room, though Rachel’s nowhere to be found.

"Dude." Puck stops in front of Sam. "You're ruining my sister's life."

"Huh?"

"Apparently _I_ was the coolest big brother in her class. But nooo, you have to show up on Wednesday and now all the rest of the kids can talk about is can _Hannah's_ brother get free hats, too?"

Sam splutters for a moment. "Free hats?"

Puck cracks a grin. "That's what third graders notice, dude. Not why you got the hat."

"Man," Sam laughs. "No respect!"

"Tough break." Puck grins again and then slumps into a chair between Sam and Finn.

Finn looks over at Puck and his grin, and shakes his head. What’s he got to be so happ—

"If I may, Mr. Schue?" Kurt’s question interrupts Finn’s train of thought.

"Of course, Kurt."

Kurt walks up to the front of the room and drags a stool next to the piano. He exchanges a quick glance with Puck, and when Finn looks at Puck, Puck is smirking a little. Kurt sits down almost gingerly on the stool and smiles briefly at Brad. Brad begins to play and Kurt begins to sing.

 _Closing time  
Open all the doors and let you out into the world  
Closing time  
Turn all of the lights on over every boy and every girl_

Finn doesn’t recognize the song, but once again, he finds himself listening for the hidden clues. Songs are how all of them talk about feelings and stuff, right? What does this mean?

 _Closing time  
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from  
Closing time  
This room won't be open till your brother or your sister comes  
So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits  
I hope you have found a friend  
Closing time  
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end_

 _I know who I want to take me home  
I know who I want to take me home  
I know who I want to take me home  
Take me home _

Finn isn’t sure why Kurt would sing about a bar, but strangely, Kurt looks a lot happier than he has in days. In fact, if Finn didn’t know all the stuff he knows, he would look at Kurt and think he didn’t look sick at all.

“Ah, such a great song, but most people miss the hidden meaning,” Schue comments with a slight smile.

“Indeed,” Kurt agrees, sliding off the stool, and his smile grows a little smug.

“So, any other songs, guys? Or do we want to call it early for the weekend?”

“I think we should go ahead and call it,” Finn says. He’s kind of had all the week he can take, and if there’s any chance of cornering Kurt and finally getting some answers, now may be it.

“All right! Em— Ms. Pillsbury and I are two of the chaperones for the dance tomorrow night, so I’ll see you there! And since we’re going to miss a few rehearsals and put together our set list, we’ll do our next assignment over two weeks. I want each of you to dig deep and think about a song that could serve as your ‘personal statement’ for this period of your life; what you want to say about yourself and how you view yourself. Think about the assignment in terms of where you are at in your life, and what you want to show to others.” Mr. Schue smiles broadly at them. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll find your collective voice by showcasing each individual voice.” With that statement, Mr. Schue heads out the door, and some of the others jump up, obviously eager to take advantage of the extra time.

Finn stands up to chase after Kurt, only to find that Kurt and Puck haven’t actually dashed off, for like the first time this week. As the choir room empties, Rachel lagging behind somewhat and giving him an encouraging glance, Finn takes a deep breath and prepares to launch into his speech about love and obligation and how brothers shouldn’t keep brothers in the dark when those brothers are only worrying about them.

When he looks up, though, Kurt and Puck are both standing in front of him, Kurt’s arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. “You have fifth period free, yes?”

Finn cocks his head and stares at Kurt. “Uh. Yeah.”

“Good.” With that, Kurt reaches for one arm and Puck reaches for the other, and between the two of them, they manage to haul Finn to his feet – sort of. “You’re coming with us.”

“I am?” Finn asks, but doesn’t make any effort to argue or fight back, allowing himself to be pretty much dragged down the hallway and out to the parking lot, carried along by Kurt and Puck and Finn’s own desperate need to figure out what the hell is going on around here. “Uh, guys, where are we going?”

“Puck’s apartment.” Kurt’s voice is calm. “We won’t be overheard there, and we’ll even feed you.”

Finn nods silently, because food could either mean good news or really bad news, but either way, it’s food, and he’s hungry, so he doesn’t argue. He climbs into the back of the Nav like they seem to expect him to do and sits quietly on the short drive to Puck’s apartment, quivering with anticipation just like in _Rocky Horror_.

After Puck opens the door, Kurt deposits his stuff near the door and indicates for Finn to do the same. “You can sit in here or in the dining room,” Kurt offers, following Puck into the kitchen. Finn sits on the sofa. It feels weird to be in Puck’s apartment. It’s probably been years since Finn has been there, but Kurt knows where everything is, and that seems even weirder somehow, like they’ve traded that part of their lives somehow.

There’s some low murmuring in the kitchen and the sounds of cooking, but no one volunteers what they’re eating or how long it’s going to be or even why, exactly, Finn’s there. It’s not that long, though, before Puck leans against the doorway. “Food, dude.”

When Finn goes into the kitchen, the table is already set and there’s food on it, a salad with chicken on top of it and grilled cheese sandwiches. Finn raises his eyebrows, impressed, and even more curious about what is going on with this conversation. Still, there’s food, and since he seems to be expected to sit down and eat, that’s what he does. Kurt and Puck sit down as well, exchanging a glance as they do so.

“Eat, then talk,” Puck says with a nod, so obviously they were having another one of those silent conversations with their eyes.

Finn puts some salad on his plate and bites into his grilled cheese, which he quickly discovers is not only filled with some kind of weird cheese, but has _mushrooms_ in it. Which, it’s good and everything, but who puts mushrooms into grilled cheese sandwiches? Is that some kind of gay thing that Finn doesn’t know about, sneaking mushrooms into stuff?

Kurt and Puck both seem pretty enthusiastic about their food, too, so maybe anything involving loss of appetite is out. Kurt finishes first, in fact, and wipes his mouth almost daintily before setting his napkin down. “First of all, I’m going to repeat what Puck told you. Not everything that you are cataloging and observing is related, and some of it? None of your business. Whatsoever.”

“Uh, ok?” Finn answers, blinking. He’s kinda of absolutely terrified to say anything more, because Kurt? Sounds scary.

“Seriously, dude,” Puck adds. “Obsessing over oranges?”

“It was a clue,” Finn half mumbles, like that should make perfect sense to Puck, even though Finn knows it really won’t.

“A clue about what?” Puck rolls his eyes. “We’re not living on a pirate ship.”

“There’s nothing wrong with pirates,” Finn answers, and ok, why is he getting so defensive over pirates? “This isn’t about pirates!”

“No, it’s not,” Kurt agrees. “It’s not about me having any kind of illness, either.”

Finn narrows his eyes. “Oh, it’s not, is it?”

“No.” Kurt shakes his head. “I’m perfectly healthy. I don’t have an autoimmune disorder, I’m not getting a robotic heart transplant, and whether or not there’s rimming going on is none of your damn business!”

“I don’t know what that last thing means, but if it’s not, like MS or a transplant, then why have you been acting so weird this week," Finn demands, not letting himself get excited yet that Kurt is actually possible healthy.

“That would be the oral–anal contact that Rachel was so excited about,” Puck snorts.

“Oh, _oh_ I did _not_ need to know that!” Finn sputters. “Oh, god, man, just.” He grimaces.

“Your girlfriend,” Kurt grits out. “And, well.” He purses his lips and exchanges another glance with Puck. “I just needed a little time to come to terms.”

“To come to terms with _what_?” Finn asks. “If you’re not dying and you’re not sick, what the hell is going on around here?”


End file.
